Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

ASSOCIATED BRITISH PORTS (No. 2) BILL (By Order)

Order for Third Reading read.

To be read the Third time on Thursday 11 May.

HYTHE, KENT, MARINA BILL (By Order)

LONDON UNDERGROUND (VICTORIA) BILL (By Order)

WENTWORTH ESTATE BILL (By Order)

BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE SOUTHBANK BILL (By Order)

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL (By Order)

REDBRIDGE LONDON BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL (By Order)

Orders for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time on Thursday 11 May.

KING'S CROSS RAILWAYS BILL (By Order)

Order for Second Reading read.

To be read a Second time on Monday 8 May at seven o'clock.

SCRABSTER HARBOUR ORDER CONFIRMATION

Mr. Secretary Rifkind presented a Bill to confirm a Provisional Order, under section 7 of the Private Legislation (Scotland) Act 1930, relating to Scrabster Harbour; And the same was read the First time, and ordered to be considered upon Wednesday next and to be printed. [Bill 134.]

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Inflation

Mr. Wallace: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his estimate of underlying inflation in the British economy; and if he will make a statement.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Nigel Lawson): The underlying inflation rate, as measured by the retail prices index excluding mortgage interest payments, was 5·7 per cent. in March.

Mr. Wallace: Does the Chancellor of the Exchequer accept that inflation, as measured by the RPI, is only one measure of the inflationary tendencies within the economy? Does he accept that the huge deterioration in our trade account and the fact that unit cost are rising faster than those of any of our competitors, are other indicators? Is not the underlying trend much higher than he has been prepared so far to admit?

Mr. Lawson: No, I do not accept at all that the underlying trend is higher than I have been prepared to admit, although I certainly accept that it is too high and that it is necessary to get it down. That is what the tightening of the monetary policy over the past year has been designed to achieve. I accept also that it is perfectly true, as the hon. Gentleman says, that the rise in imports is a sign of excessive pressure of domestic demand in this country. Again that is addressed by the same tighting of monetary policy and the raising of interest rates that has occurred and that is now clearly having an effect.

Mr. Bill Walker: Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is only the policies of my right hon. Friend and the Government that give us any hope of reducing the present rate of inflation—both underlying and otherwise? If one were to incorporate any of the policies offered by the Opposition, the effect would be exactly the opposite. Inflation would go up.

Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is right. We do not know very much about the Opposition's policies. We have heard a few leaks. We understand that a little bit more is to be published quite shortly. I dare say that it will be as evasive and as elusive as what has been offered so far. Nevertheless, we are looking forward to it with great interest and we shall examine it very carefully. In the meantime, what we have to go on is the Opposition's record. Their record is clear. When they were in office, inflation averaged over 15 per cent.

Mr. Gordon Brown: But why is inflation twice what it was last year and twice what it was when the right hon. Gentleman became Chancellor of the Exchequer, pledged to eliminate it? Why is it that, even after housing costs are excluded, inflation is 50 per cent. higher than it was last year, when in Japan it is 1·2 per cent. and in Germany 2·7 per cent? Will the Chancellor tell us why his anti-inflationary policies have been so unsuccessful?

Mr. Lawson: The comparison that inflation is 50 per cent. higher than it was last year, is a rather absurd one. By the same token, the German inflation rate is 150 per cent.


higher than it was last year. In that case, according to the hon. Member for Dunfermline, East (Mr. Brown) we are clearly doing very much better than the Germans are. The phoney figures that he continually scatters across the Dispatch Box carry no weight at all and just make him something of a laughing stock. The reason for the rise in inflation is quite clear. It is that domestic demand has been rising excessively and that the money GDP has been rising excessively. I make no apology to the Opposition whatever, because the underlying rate of inflation today, even though it is far too high, is still lower than it was in the lowest month that the Opposition ever had during the whole of their period in office.

Business Investment

Sir Michael Shaw: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the latest figures for the growth of business investment in the economy.

Mr. Lawson: Business investment in 1988 was 14¼ per cent. higher in real terms than in 1987.

Sir Michael Shaw: Does not the continuing rapid rise in business investment underline a steady confidence in the actions and policies of my right hon. Friend? Does it not also point to a continuing confidence in the greater prospects for growth in business and employment in Britain in future?

Mr. Lawson: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for what he said. I am sure that he is absolutely right about the climate of long-term confidence that has been created in this country throughout business and industry, certainly given the continuance of the present Government, and that is of fundamental importance. Business investment has been one of the most encouraging aspects of the overall economic scene. Business investment now—that is, the figures for last year, the most recent ones we have—is now at the highest proportion of GDP that it has ever been since records began. Indeed, during the whole of the 1980s, total investment in this country has grown faster than in any other major European country.

Mr. David Howell: Is not one of the reasons for the current trade deficit the enormous growth in business investment in the economy? That means that our cities and our industries are being re-equipped and modernised at a fantastic rate. Given that for the past 20 years critics of British economic management have said that the one thing we really need is a rapid growth of investment, can my right hon. Friend begin to explain what on earth all the grumbling from the Opposition is about?

Mr. Lawson: My right hon. Friend asks a very good question, but I feel that it is not a question for me to answer. Perhaps it is a question for the right hon. and learned Member for Monklands, East (Mr. Smith). My right hon. Friend, who understands these matters very well, is absolutely right. It is striking, for example, that both last year and indeed the year before, the most rapid growth in all imports was in imports of capital goods. Capital goods are part of the investment boom and will provide increased capacity, increased growth and increased exports in the future.

Mr. John Smith: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why the Government always seek to disguise the sad fact

that on the latest available figures, investment in manufacturing industry is lower than it was in 1979? Is it not the case that the failure to invest in that crucial, tradeable sector of our economy is the main reason why we now face a horrendous balance of payments deficit, the biggest since records began?

Mr. Lawson: No, that is not so. Indeed, manufacturing industry is in a far stronger position than it has been for a very long time. It is striking that manufacturing output today is well up on what it was when we first took office, whereas when the Labour Government were in office, manufacturing output fell; it did not rise at all. As for investments, the quality of investment is also important —[Interruption.] Yes, and the quality of investment has improved immeasurably, as is seen by the rate of return on capital and the fact that manufacturing profits are higher than they have been for a very long time and total business investment—and all forms of investment matter, not just manufacturing investment which is part of the story but not the whole story—total business investment is a higher proportion of total output than ever before since records began.

Shareholders

Mr. Mans: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what is his latest estimate of the total number of shareholders in the United Kingdom.

The Paymaster General (Mr. Peter Brooke): Including holders of unit trusts, 10 million people own shares; 22 per cent. of the adult population.

Mr. Mans: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree that increased share ownership is giving individuals a personal stake in the success of British industry? Will he encourage his right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Energy and for the Environment to include employee share ownership plans in the offers for sale of the electricity and water industries?

Mr. Brooke: I unhesitatingly answer yes to my hon. Friend's first question. As to his second question, the Government welcome the opportunity which privatisation of the water and electricity industries will provide for employees to take a stake in the future of their company. My hon. and learned Friend the Minister responsible for water announced on 15 March that there will be special share offer arrangements for employees of the new water plcs, which will include free matching priority and possibly discount share offers. Further details will be announced in due course. Arrangements for employees of the electricity supply industry will be announced at a suitable date closer to the flotations of the electricity companies.

Mr. Butterfill: Has my right hon. Friend noticed the recent opinion poll which shows that 20 per cent. of all adults in this country would be interested in buying electricity shares when the industry is privatised? That would amount to 6 million people, making it the most popular flotation ever achieved and one that is likely to be massively over-subscribed.

Mr. Brooke: I have not seen the opinion poll to which my hon. Friend refers, although I have heard about it. I share his endorsement and reaction to it.

Investment and Consumption

Mr. Brazier: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the rate of growth of (a) total investment and (b) total consumption over the past seven years.

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. John Major): In the seven years to 1988, total consumption grew, in real terms, by 25 per cent., while total investment grew over twice as fast—by 54 per cent.

Mr. Brazier: Does my right hon. Friend agree that total investment has grown so much faster than consumption not only as a result of the level of confidence that business feels in the Government's economic policy, but as a reflection of the fact that there is some remaining overmanning from the grotesque levels that we inherited when we took office? Does my right hon. Friend further agree that it is a healthy feature of economies at this stage of development, such as those just ahead of us like America and Japan, that employment moves as a result of investment from manufacturing to the service sector?

Mr. Major: My hon. Friend is right about the confidence of industry. As my right hon. Friend said a moment ago, total investment is now higher as a proportion of gross domestic product than it has been for many years. On the future of manufacturing industry in particular, the Department of Trade and Industry investment intentions survey forecasts further investment growth in 1989 of 11 per cent. My hon. Friend is right on overmanning, but he should observe that not only has it fallen in many industries, but has done so at the same time as employment has grown in the service industries and in other industries.

Mr. Beith: Does the Chief Secretary realise that few people outside his own supporters—and not all of those—believe that the enormous switch in capacity from consumption to export will take place on a scale sufficient to wipe out our balance of trade deficit? Does he find it possible to believe that that will happen when world trade is expected to slow down? He is presuming that exports will rise 4 per cent. a year faster than imports.

Mr. Major: Invariably, there are Doubting Thomases about. We shall have to wait and see. Exports have been doing extremely well in recent years and there is every sign that that will continue. The hon. Gentleman will welcome that when it comes about for it will be a considerable achievement by British exporting industry.

Mr. Soames: Is my right hon. Friend able to quantify the proportion of the trade deficit that is accounted for in inward investment?

Mr. Major: There is a substantial amount of capital inward investment, which reflects, to a large degree, the confidence of external investors in the management of the British economy. On the balance of trade, a substantial part of the growth in the trade gap relates to the growth of investment in goods for production and investment.

International Monetary Fund

Mr. Burt: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last attended a meeting of the International Monetary Fund; and what was discussed.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last attended a meeting of the International Monetary Fund; and what was discussed.

Mr. Lawson: I attended the interim committee meeting of the IMF in Washington last month. Much of the discussion focused on international debt, where several countries, including the United States, had made new proposals. The committee agreed that the IMF should set aside a portion of its lending to help finance debt reduction in countries which are pursuing appropriate economic reforms, including in particular removing barriers to inward investment. But the committee also stressed that official creditors should not substitute for private lenders.

Mr. Burt: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. May I urge on him the need to continue the step-by-step, case by case analysis of the debtor countries, as he will recognise that there is strong support from Conservative Members for careful consideration and good giving to those countries which are doing their best to improve their economic position, but that there is no support for giving to countries that refuse to learn the economic facts of life?

Mr. Lawson: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The conditionality which has always been a part of IMF lending and of other international financial institution lending under the debt strategy is absolutely vital. If these countries are not going to take steps to put their own economic houses in order, really they will get nowhere at all and any lending will be completely fruitless. In many cases it is the conditions attached to the loans, as a result of IMF programmes which these countries have to implement, which are more important than the amount of money that is being lent itself. I realise that in many countries they feel that, politically, it is very difficult to take the measures that are necessary, but the plain fact is that unless those measures are taken, they are never going to get their economies to recover.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell: While we all applaud the valuable efforts that have been made by the IMF in terms of Third world countries' debt reconstruction and relief and the considerable efforts made by my right hon. Friend in generating new ideas in that respect, will he treat with some scepticism the recent calls at the IMF sub-committee that quotas should be increased by up to 100 per cent., bearing in mind that at the moment IMF resources are at an all-time high?

Mr. Lawson: Yes, my hon. Friend is right. There is really no case—no objective case, no logical case—for a substantial increase in IMF quotas. The International Monetary Fund is fully able with its existing resources to continue to do what it is necessary for it to do and I pay tribute to the work that it does do in order to pursue the debt strategy. But it is wrong to talk soley, or even mainly, in terms nowadays of the IMF because the overwhelming problem that is being addressed at the present time is the problem of the big debts run up by Latin-American countries, which are overwhelmingly debts owed to commercial banks in the private sector. This is a matter which the commercial banks have got to sort out with the countries to whom they have lent the money and they are going to have to accept that the amount of debt has got to be reduced and they have got to make themselves responsible for that debt reduction.

Mr. Worthington: The Chancellor should face up to the fact that our contribution to the Third world has fallen from 0·59 per cent. to 0·28 per cent. during the period of this Government and that many Governments who are in desperate circumstances have had responsible policies. Although the greater environmental consciousness of the Government nowadays is to be welcomed, the fact is that there will be no future for people in this country or anywhere in the world unless we assist Third world countries to deal with environmental and population issues. The Government will be harshly judged in the future for their callous attitude towards assisting countries with much worse problems than our own. Does the Chancellor agree?

Mr. Lawson: No, I do not agree, not merely because we took the lead in the initiative to help the very poorest countries of sub-Saharan Africa—the very poorest countries in the world—with their debt problems. But further than that, in the first place what matters even more than economic aid, although we give a substantial amount of aid, is investment in those countries. The United Kingdom invests more in private investment in developing countries than the whole of the rest of the European Community put together. That is our record and it is a very good one. I shall say one other thing to the hon. Gentleman who has asked that question, and to Opposition Members: the two things above all that they need are private overseas investment—the Labour party has always been hostile to overseas investment of any kind—and the other thing is to open our markets to the goods from those countries and, again, it is the Labour party that has always been hostile to that.

Mr. John Smith: What possible reason can the Chancellor give for halving overseas aid during the period of this Conservative Government? We are constantly told that the Government have an economic success, which many of us doubt, but if they do have an economic success, why can they not at least maintain the aid to the poorest countries instead of halving it, which the Chancellor must admit is what they have done?

Mr. Lawson: Economic aid has increased.

Rates (Increases)

Mr. Harry Greenway: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the impact on the real personal disposable income of (a) pensioners and (b) others, of the latest rates increases; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Major: The information available on the domestic rate poundage as set by local authorities in England for 1989–90 indicates that average domestic rate bills have risen by 9·3 per cent. There is no information available on likely movements in real disposable income for particular groups between 1988–89 and 1989–90.

Mr. Greenway: Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that high rates, which occur so often in Labour areas such as Ealing—where rates this year have gone up by no less than 32 per cent., added to the 65 per cent. increase of two years ago—damage pensioners and everybody else, including industry and employment? Although I welcome the fact that pensioners get pension increases well in line with inflation, they are severely damaged by the way in

which the Labour party squitters their money away in great expenditure. Does my hon. Friend join me in that view?

Mr. Major: The message that my hon. Friend gives me is that he regards Ealing council as a loopy council. I am happy to join him in that condemnation. My figures for the rate increases were slightly different from those given by my hon. Friend. My understanding is that Ealing has budgeted to raise its spending by 16 per cent. in 1989–90, and the domestic rate bills have risen by 31 per cent. following a 72 per cent. rates increase only two years ago. That shows a substantial disregard for pensioners, who are in fact protected by the substantial rate rebates that we have provided for them.

Dr. Marek: Could the explanation be that this 9·3 per cent. increase that will have adverse effects on pensioners, as mentioned by the Chief Secretary, is brought about by the fact that, at current prices, rate support grant in 1987–88 was £10,059 million, and in 1988–89 it was only £9,687 million? Local authorities had no alternative but to make up for this increase in Government taxation in order to preserve services. Is this not yet another reason why taxation as a percentage of GDP is higher now under a Tory Government than it ever was under the previous Labour Administration, and why the Tory Government are the Government of high taxation.

Mr. Major: If the hon. Gentleman believes that, I despair for him. He will never persuade anyone else to believe that. He speaks for the party of high taxation, as I speak for the party of low taxation. I will explain to him why rates go up so much, and disproportionately, in Labour-controlled authorities. It is because they waste a good deal of their money, and they do not control it properly. It is as straightforward as that.

Sir Anthony Grant: If the daft proposals for rate reform, of a local income tax and capital value proposed by the Opposition were implemented in my constituency—and I think in that of my right hon. Friend—the burden would be more than twice as much as the community charge. Does my right hon. Friend agree?

Mr. Major: I understand that. That is not a unique proposition for, if many of the policies of the Opposition were carried out, the tax burden generally would go up dramatically for taxpayers as well.

Private Medical Treatment (Tax Relief)

Mr. Allen McKay: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what recent representations he has received concerning his proposal to offer private medical tax relief.

Mr. Major: A number.

Mr. McKay: If the word "targeted" is not to appear as an emotional word giving the appearance of efficiency coupled with compassion, will the Minister explain to the House—and possibly to Back Bench Conservative Members, to whom it has not been explained sufficiently—how, under the guise of cutting child benefit and targeting those in greater need, he can logically at the same time advocate a policy of giving tax relief to those on medical insurance, as that seems to be targeted to the better off?

Mr. Major: The hon. Gentleman is entirely wrong about the proposal being targeted to the better off. The proposal before the House that I have no doubt we will debate shortly in Committee on the Finance Bill, to provide tax relief for medical insurance premiums, tackles a real problem. In a ring fence way it will help many elderly people who wish to continue medical insurance cover on retirement but who are unable to do because they have lost the benefit of the employer scheme. At the moment of retirement their income tends to fall and their premium tends to rise. We are seeking to retain the capacity for these people to sustain and retain the medical insurance they have previously had. That is entirely fair and reasonable, and I support it thoroughly.

Mr. Neil Hamilton: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the likely savings in public expenditure will exceed the cost to the Treasury of the tax relief itself when it is fully running? Has my right hon. Friend noticed that the Labour Members are celebrating a decade of Thatcherism by trying to ditch their own vote-losing policies and adopt a pale pink version of ours? How long will it be before they adopt this policy also?

Mr. Major: It is certainly true that, as my hon. Friend said, the Opposition have learnt that there is a sea change in attitude in this country, and they tend to tack behind it. It will certainly be another decade or more before they are remotely likely to form a Government of any sort. I reiterate what I said a moment ago. I agree that this measure is likely to prove a very good bargain for the taxpayer.

Mr. Madden: How can the Chief Secretary justify poor pensioners having to apply for means-tested benefits when rich pensioners who apply for medical tax relief will not even have to fill in an application form?

Mr. Major: The justification is that we provide benefits for those pensioners who need them. The hon. Gentleman should welcome that.

Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this move affects a relatively small number of people who have been receiving tax relief on private medical insurance? Does he agree that they with to continue with private medical insurance, but are mystified about why Opposition Members wish to deny it to them, and regard the Opposition's announcements as mean-minded and rather tawdry?

Mr. Major: It is certainly true that, at the moment, a small number of pensioners are elegible to benefit—about 600,000 to 700,000. There is no mystery about the Opposition's hostility to private provision and self-provision. It is traditional.

Mr. Chris Smith: Has the Chief Secretary seen the response of the Royal College of Nursing, which describes the proposal as having no economic, social or medical justification? Instead of providing tax subsidies to those few who are rich enough and well enough to benefit from private medical insurance, should not the Government spend the money on basic, desperately needed improvements to the Health Service as a whole, for the benefit of all pensioners?

Mr. Major: The hon. Gentleman might have been on a different planet for the past year. He may not have noticed

that, in the last public expenditure round, the National Health Service had its largest ever increase in resources, of £2·5 billion. A further £2·5 billion was agreed last year for next year's increase in the National Health Service provision, and that is before we re-examine the matter in the public expenditure round next autumn. The Labour party never provided remotely the same amount of facilities for the National Health Service.

Manufacturing Productivity

Mr. Charles Wardle: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what are the latest figures for the growth of manufacturing productivity in the economy.

Mr. Brooke: Productivity in United Kingdom manufacturing grew in the three months to February 1989 by 6½ per cent. on a year earlier.

Mr. Wardle: Is it the case that, for most of the 1980s, growth in manufacturing productivity has been faster in this country than in the other G7 countries, whereas, in the mid to late 1970s, we were at the bottom of the league? If growth in productivity is to continue, will it not require sane pay settlements, competitive manning levels, and sustained investment in new technology?

Mr. Brooke: I can confirm the figures which my hon. Friend quoted. If he were to take the comparison back to 1960–70, he would also be accurate. I endorse also what he suggested as a recipe for continuing success.

Mr. Henderson: Does the Minister accept that manufacturing productivity is an inadequate test of economic success? Car companies such as Rover and Ford, which have improved manufacturing productivity, have been unable to meet current demands using component manufacturers in this country because of their lack of investment over the past 10 years. The improvement in manufacturing productivity in Ford and Rover has led to the sucking in of imports, principally from Europe.

Mr. Brooke: I would be the first to agree with the hon. Gentleman that manufacturing productivity is not the end of the story. The story which I told was an outstanding one—one in which I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would have taken pleasure in terms of the achievements of this economy.

CBI

Mr. Cran: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he next intends to meet the director general of the Confederation of British Industry; and what will be discussed.

Mr. Major: My right hon. Friend meets the director general of the CBI from time to time, and a wide range of matters are discussed.

Mr. Cran: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that British management must continue to resist excessive wage claims such as we are beginning to see, if for no other reason than the need to continue to improve our international competitiveness? Does he agree, further, that management must show leadership and ensure also that their own snouts are not too deeply in the pay trough?

Mr. Major: I am not sure that I would put the second part of my hon. Friend's question in precisely that way, but I certainly agree with the underlying sentiment. I do not defend unustifiably high salary increases, whether for directors or for the work force. That should be clear. On his substantive point, there must be a clear danger to industry and competitiveness if wage costs outstrip productivity growth. It is an important function of management to make sure that they do not.

Mr. Robert Sheldon: When the right hon. Gentleman meets the director general, will he explain to him something that he himself seems to be reluctant to accept—that is, how he hopes to reduce the balance of payments to a reasonable level with a high pound and high interest rates?

Mr. Major: I am bound to say to the right hon. Gentleman, in terms of the strength of sterling, that it is a matter of record that some of the countries with the strongest exchange rates over a lengthy period—Japan springs immediately to mind—have an extremely good exporting performance.

Mr. Jack: When my right hon. Friend next meets the CBI, will he discuss the encouraging trends towards higher levels of exports from the United Kingdom? Will he give industry every assistance to increase the amount and value of our exports?

Mr. Major: We are certainly delighted to see the increasing trend in exports. We wish that to continue. The most important thing that we can do for industry, whether in regard to exports or internal sales, is to get firm control of inflation. That is central to our policy.

Mrs. Fyfe: When the Minister next meets the director general of the CBI, will he place on the agenda the concern of the Equal Opportunities Commission about the taxation of workplace nurseries? Will he further tell the tigress that her cubs were better looked after than the vast majority of working women's children are after 10 years of the tigress being at No. 10?

Mr. Major: That may well be a matter that the director general would wish to discuss. I shall bear the hon. Lady's comments in mind.

World Bank

Mr. Arbuthnot: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he last attended a meeting of the World Bank; and what was discussed.

The Economic Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Peter Lilley): My right hon. Friend the Chancellor met the president of the World Bank in London on 26 April; discussion covered a wide range of issues.

Mr. Arbuthnot: Did my right hon. Friend emphasise the importance of encouraging underdeveloped countries to attract private capital investment to assist in their development?

Mr. Lilley: My hon. Friend is absolutely right to emphasise that point, which was mentioned earlier today by my right hon. Friend. The United Kingdom has an exceptionally good record on this. Over the last five years, direct private investment, which is of immense value to

underdeveloped countries, from this country totalled £6·6 billion, averaging £1·3 billion a year. That is the best help that this country can give many developing countries.

Miss Lestor: Noting the fact that official Government aid as a proportion of GNP has fallen from 0·52 per cent. under Labour to 0·28 per cent. under this Government, which represents a loss in real terms of 20 per cent.—I wish the Chancellor would listen, because he got his figures wrong—will he bear in mind the week after next, when discussing the replenishment of the World Bank international development assistance, the fact that it is important that donor nations give generously? Will he support the growing demand that IDA loans should be converted into grants? Will he pursue that policy for all future assistance to the poorest countries?

Mr. Lilley: I know that the hon. Lady takes a great interest in these matters: indeed, I have discussed them with her. I do not think that she is correct in assuming that the total benefit or even the major benefit that this country can give underdeveloped countries is limited to official aid. I know that she will join me in welcoming the fact that Britain was the first country to pay in full its contribution to the recent increase in the general capital increase of the World Bank, which is on the lines of the sort of thing that she was welcoming. I would place even greater emphasis on the importance of encouraging trade and private investment in developing countries.

Mr. Hind: Next time our right hon. Friend meets representatives of the World Bank, will he ask them to consider which of the two major parties in this country is likely to close the gap between our exports and imports and therefore make Britain a much stronger economy—one with record levels of investment and one with productivity four times larger than that of the last Labour Government or the one with the crackpot policies of the Opposition?

Mr. Lilley: I expect that my right hon. Friend will cover a wide range of subjects, including those mentioned. He will, of course, want to reassure the leader of the World Bank that Britain will not have a trade policy that seeks to rectify a balance of payments situation by excluding trade with the underdeveloped countries, as is often the wish of the Opposition.

Personal Disposable Income

Mr. Atkinson: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the annual average rate of growth of real personal disposable income since 1983.

Mr. Brooke: Real personal disposable income has grown by 3 per cent. per year, on average, since 1983.

Mr. Atkinson: How much have real incomes increased since 1979? Will my right hon. Friend confirm that since 1979 the British people have enjoyed greater prosperity than ever before in our history thanks to the economic policies of—[Interruption.]

Mr. Brooke: I can confirm exactly the effect that my hon. Friend was seeking to achieve at that precise moment.

Mr. Ian Taylor: Does my right hon. Friend agree that taxation rates at the higher level are a critical factor in judging whether the entrepreneurial spirit will exist in


society? Does he agree that rates at the top level of 50 per cent. and abolition of the cut-off point for national insurance are likely to damage the entrepreneurial spirit and have a long-term adverse effect on the economy? Is he aware that that is the latest policy statement of the Labour party?

Mr. Brooke: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is a tribute to both my right hon. Friends that the effect of 10 years of this Government has been to produce a reduction from 83 per cent. to 50 per cent. in the thinking of the Opposition.

Take-home Pay

Mr. Watts: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what has been the increase in the real take-home pay of a man on average male earnings between 1978–79 and 1989–90.

Mr. Brooke: Real take-home pay for a married man with two children on average male earnings is expected to be 31 per cent. higher in 1989–90 than in 1978–79.

Mr. Watts: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the most significant features of that unprecedented improvement are that the benefits have been enjoyed by people at every level of income and that over the past six years real disposable personal income has grown at a rate of more than 3 per cent. per annum?

Mr. Brooke: My hon. Friend shows by his question that he knows even more about the subject than I do. However, I entirely confirm to the British people his very welcome figures.

Interest Rates (Small Businesses)

Mr. Ted Garrett: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what assessment he has made of the impact of interest rate rises since 1988 on small businesses.

Mr. Lilley: Inflation is the greatest threat to the prosperity of small businesses, which will therefore greatly benefit from the Government's firm anti-inflationary policy.

Mr. Garrett: Does the Minister not agree that what he has stated is exactly the statement made by the Small Business Research, Trust? Having said that, will he not do anything about it. One of the biggest problems facing small businesses is debt collecting. Will the brains of the Treasury think of some way in which the larger companies can pay their debts on time to the small businesses which operate for their benefit?

Mr. Lilley: I am not at all surprised, and I welcome the fact that the Small Business Bureau endorses our attitude towards inflation and not that of the Opposition. Perhaps, that is because we have been successful in encouraging the growth of new businesses. During the past year, the number of businesses trading has increased by more than 1,200 every week. On the question of debts suffered by small businesses, the scheme that we introduced in the Budget before last has been a great help to the small companies which have chosen to take advantage of it.

Inflation

Mr. Gow: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when he expects to achieve his target of zero inflation.

Mr. Lilley: The Government's ultimate objective remains price stability. The medium term financial strategy assumes that the annual rate of inflation in the GDP deflator will be down to 2½ per cent. by 1992–93, consistent with its objectives for money GDP.

Mr. Gow: Could my hon. Friend accelerate the meaning of the word "ultimate"? Will he please ensure that the policy of the Treasury is to bring about that policy which is attainable—zero inflation and no rises in prices?

Mr. Lilley: I agree with my hon. Friend both as to the destination and as to the route, but I cannot give him a different timetable.

Mr. Barron: Have the past 10 years been worth it for a reduction of 2 per cent.?

Mr. Lilley: It has been immensely worthwhile to get rid of a rate of inflation that averaged 15 per cent. under the last Labour Government and which has reached 5 per cent. since 1983.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER

Engagements

Mr. Malcolm Bruce: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 4 May.

The Prime Minister (Mrs. Margaret Thatcher): This morning I presided at a meeting of the Cabinet and had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be having further meetings later today.

Mr. Bruce: Will the Prime Minister accept that many of us who do not share her views, nevertheless acknowledge that it is a considerable achievement to be in No. 10 for 10 years? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Does she also accept that many people feel that she is now going too far and that she only listens to people whom she describes as "one of us"? Would it not be better for the country and for her if, in future, she went around with her eyes and ears open and her mouth shut?

The Prime Minister: Then why does the hon. Gentleman ask me a question so that I have to open my mouth to answer it?

Mrs. Ann Winterton: May I ask my right hon. Friend, as one grandmother to another, whether she agrees that the stability of our society is based greatly upon the strength of the family unit? Does she further agree that, when we reform our present outdated Sunday trading law, we should not throw the baby out with the bathwater, but should retain the traditional character of the British Sunday as a family day for rest, recreation and corporate Christian worship?

The Prime Minister: I think that we must form a grandparents club in the House of Commons. I think that there would be rather a lot of people in it—and all of them would agree with my hon. Friend that the importance of the family is vital to the health of our society and that it is


vital to uphold it. [Interruption.] The family existed as a unit in society long before there was such a thing as child benefit, because people took responsibility for their own families.
With regard to Sunday trading, I think that my hon. Friend will agree that the present law is not fair and not consistent; however, I hope that, before any Bill was ever brought in, there would be virtual agreement in the House on what it should contain.

Mr. Kinnock: Would the Prime Minister be good enough to recall for us today the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi?

The Prime Minister: I think that one has achieved that prayer and brought a great deal of harmony where there was a fantastic amount of discord under the last Labour Government.

Mr. Kinnock: It bears repeating:
Where there is discord may we bring harmony,
Where there is error may we bring truth,
Where there is doubt may we bring faith,
Where there is despair may we bring hope".
Can the Prime Minister tell us why, in 10 years, she has failed to live up to a single one of those principles?

The Prime Minister: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will remember the discord in the winter of discontent of 1979, when, under Socialism, there were strikes in the hospitals and one could not even get the dead buried. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will realise that there is now faith in Britain overseas—[Interruption.]—and perhaps he will realise that the social services are at a level of efficiency and generosity which has brought hope and a higher standard of living than people have ever known before.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Does my right hon. Friend agree that the last thing this country needs is a national dock strike, a strike which would lead to imports being held up and coming in after the strike was over, thereby damaging our export potential? [Interruption.] Does she recall that, when national dock strikes and other strikes which damaged the economy took place under Labour, the Conservative party supported the then Government in opposing them? What does she think of the statement made by Labour Members that, if there was a strike, they would have to support it?

The Prime Minister: I earnestly hope with my hon. Friend that there will not be a strike. The national dock labour scheme is being abolished so that the ports to which it at present applies can have a much more prosperous future when it has gone, as can all the people who work in industries in the hinterland. It will be greatly to their advantage. Any strike on behalf of the dock labour scheme would bear extremely heavily on all the other people in the economy who work steadily and well to produce Britain's prosperity and the prosperity of their families.

Mr. Ted Garrett: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 4 May.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Garrett: The House will have noted that the Prime Minister splurged about patriotism when replying to the previous question. Is the right hon. Lady aware that there

are many anniversaries this year, including one that I consider to be important—the 40th anniversary of the formation of the Council of Europe? Tomorrow, Finland will be the 23rd country to join.
Will the Prime Minister ensure that the vast Government public relations machine highlights the importance of that organisation relative to the other organisation which I can hardly bear to mention but which is based in Brussels? Is she aware that the Council of Europe, which is composed of 177 elected Members of Parliament from the countries concerned, of which Britain has 18, can do infinitely more for the general well-being of this country than can the European Economic Community? Is she further aware that, for that reason, many of our interests in the broader spectrum of Europe coincide with the 23 rather than with the 12?

The Prime Minister: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for those remarks. I agree that the Council of Europe represents a far wider swathe of Europe than does the Community and that it does an excellent job. I particularly pay tribute to the work done by hon. Members of this House in the Council of Europe, which is also particularly active in human rights and in keeping contact with many countries which would otherwise feel left out of the European Community. I share the hon. Gentleman's sentiments, and I thank him for expressing them.

Q.4. Mr. Thurnham: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 4 May.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Thurnham: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the way in which the strength of the economy has helped the sick and the disabled, whose real benefits have nearly doubled in the last decade? Does she agree that much more work lies ahead, especially to help find families where needed for the 5,600 handicapped children still in institutional care?

The Prime Minister: I agree that greater prosperity has enabled us to do far more for the disabled. Indeed, when we came to office, expenditure on the disabled was £1·8 billion a year. It is now £7·3 billion, and helps many more people. In particular, the mobility allowance has been made non-taxable. We have increased spending on the mobility allowance by nearly six times.
With regard to finding new families for handicapped children, I should like to pay tribute to what my hon. Friend has done and to the great lead that he has taken on the matter. Grants have been made to a number of voluntary agencies, in particular to the British Agency for Adoption and Fostering, which next week launches a new family-finding campaign entitled "Families Forever". We wish it well in this great work.

Q.5. Mr. Chris Smith: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 4 May.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Smith: Will the Prime Minister tell us what the British balance of payments position was in 1979, and what it is likely to be in 1989? How proud is she of the change that she has brought about?

The Prime Minister: I am very proud indeed of the fact that this country has overseas assets of enormous dimensions, which have gone up over the past 10 years and which, together with economic policies, enable people to keep confidence in this country, and enable us to import many goods for higher investment to give higher productivity in future. That is a situation that was never attained under the last Labour Government.

Mr. Gorst: During the course of her busy day, will my right hon. Friend have time to address herself to what she might be able to announce to the House on 4 May 1999 as her major achievements in the next 10 years?

The Prime Minister: Not today, but I hope very soon to be giving some thought to that prospect.

Mr. Sillars: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 4 May.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Gentleman to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Sillars: May I refer the Prime Minister to her earlier remarks about the increased overseas aid given by Britain? Is she aware that that does not apply to the colony of Hong Kong? Will the right hon. Lady acknowledge that there has been a serious breach of our moral obligations to the Chinese population in Hong Kong? Will she and the Government seriously take on board a review of the present policy, which denies those people the fundamental right of a vote in a democratic country?

The Prime Minister: I am delighted that the hon. Member seems to think that in Scotland there is much greater faith in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Sillars: That is not a reply.

The Prime Minister: Ah, but it is a reply. The hon. Member did not say that Scotland lacked faith in the future of the United Kingdom, and I quite understand why, because Scotland has benefited enormously from a higher standard of living. I am so glad to recognise that, on this our 10th anniversary.
The lease on Hong Kong ends in 1997 and we did extremely well to negotiate an agreement with China to keep the present capitalist regime going for the next 50 years. I believe that that is much welcomed in Hong Kong. The hon. Gentleman must have run out of original ideas, because he repeats the same question that he has asked before, and I give him the same answer.

Mr. Butterfill: To ask the Prime Minister if she will list her official engagements for Thursday 4 May.

The Prime Minister: I refer my hon. Friend to the reply that I gave some moments ago.

Mr. Butterfill: In view of the appalling incompetence and maladministration of the European Commission revealed by the Court of Auditors' report, does not my right hon. Friend agree that it is extraordinary that it

should seek to extend its activities to language training and to the medium-term transport infrastructure fund? Does she not feel that it would be better employed looking after the matters for which it already has responsibility, in particular, removing the barriers to takeover bids that presently exist in the European Community?

The Prime Minister: I agree with my hon. Friend that we need to be on our guard against the Commission's attempts to extend existing Community competence into new areas. That seems to happen a lot at present. I agree with him that one area where t could usefully make more use of its existing powers would be in ensuring fair competition in Europe. For example, a number of countries still give heavy subsidies to industry, although they pay lip service to fair competition. Italy, Germany and France still give heavy subsidies to industry, and if they really believe in fair competition in 1992, those subsidies will have to go. More effective use of existing powers and competence should have priority over trying to extend that competence or dreaming up yet more institutions.

Mr. Alfred Morris: If the NHS White Paper is such a huge success, as the Prime Minister persists in claiming, why was the visit of the Secretary of State for Health to the Vale of Glamorgan such a disastrous flop? Does the right hon. Lady still expect her 10th anniversary to be marked by victory in the vale?

The Prime Minister: I hope that we shall achieve victory in the vale. We deserve it. I hope that one factor will be the Government's excellent record on the Health Service. As pointed out at Question Time on Tuesday, for every El spent on the NHS by the previous Labour Government, this Government have spent £3. There are more doctors and nurses and they are better paid, more patients are treated and each doctor has a smaller list. The right hon. Gentleman should help us to put the facts across instead of the fiction released by the Opposition.

Questions to Ministers

Mr. Speaker: There has been a resurgence in the number of open questions being tabled to departmental Ministers. The practice has been that the Chair will not call supplementaries to questions to a departmental Minister about that Minister's meetings or visits which do not state their purpose reasonably precisely. That has most frequently occurred on questions about future meetings or visits, but it equally extends to questions about past events, especially when it appears from the Minister's original answer that no recent meeting or visit of the kind mentioned in the question has taken place.
I exercised some latitude in allowing supplementary questions on some borderline questions of that kind yesterday and today, but with the great congestion that we now have at Question Time nearly every day, it would be advantageous if I ceased to call supplementary questions on such questions, in the hope that they will cease to be tabled.

Business of the House

Mr. Frank Dobson: May I ask a question about some meetings next week? Will the Leader of the House tell us what the business will be for next week?

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. John Wakeham): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 8 MAY—Timetable motion on the Dock Work Bill.
Motion to take note of EC document on smoking in public places. Details will be given in the Official Report.
The Chairman of Ways and Means has named opposed private business for consideration at Seven o'clock.
TUESDAY 9 MAY—Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.
WEDNESDAY to MAY—Consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.
At the end on Wednesday, motion relating to the personal equity plan regulations.
THURSDAY 11 MAY—There will be a debate on a Government motion to approve the White Paper "Working for Patients" (Cm. 555).
FRIDAY 12 MAY—Private Members' motions.
MONDAY 15 MAY—Until Seven o'clock, private Members' motions.
The Chairman of Ways and Means is expected to name opposed private business for consideration at Seven o'clock.

[Debate on Monday 8 May:


Relevant European Community Document


4225/89 plus Corrigendum
Smoking in public places

Relevant Report of European Legislation Committee—HC15-xvii (1988–89) para 3.]

Mr. Dobson: I start by registering the Opposition's deepest objections to the guillotine motion on the Dock Work Bill. The Bill was produced with no warning to anyone, on the same day that the White Paper on the dock work scheme was printed. It was rushed into the House and now, apparently, it is to be rushed to a guillotine. The Leader of the House introduced a record number of guillotine motions in the previous parliamentary Session and it looks as though he is trying to break his own record.
I go on from that to welcome the debate in Government time on the future of the National Health Service, for which we have been asking for a long time. But when shall we have a Government statement and a debate on the report on care in the community, because there is a clear relationship between proposals for caring for people in the community and any changes in the NHS?
In addition, when are we likely to have the long-promised debate on the Government's proposal to substitute student loans for student grants?
Finally, let me go back to a request that I made a week or two ago for a debate on the growing public concern over Government and public bodies' spending on publicity and advertising. In particular, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange for the chairman of the Tory party to come to the House to tell us when the Tory party will pay back to the water rate payers of the Thames water authority area the

money that they paid to put an advertisement in the Conservative document advertising 10 years of this dishonest Government?

Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman asked me five questions about the business for next week. He first, as I would expect him to do, registered his disagreement with the proposal for a timetable motion on the Dock Work Bill, but he has to recognise that his hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) said during the Second Reading debate,
The Bill involves just one proposal".—[Official Report, 17 April 1989; vol. 151, c. 62.]
I recognise that it is a proposal which the Opposition are committed to resist by all means at their disposal, but in view of this I think it sensible, at a relatively early stage in the Committee, to seek to draw up a timetable for future debate. I shall be tabling the motion later today and I can tell the House that it will allow a very generous amount of time for consideration of the Bill both in Committee and when it returns to the Floor of the House.
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for thanking me for arranging the debate on the Health Service next week, which will take place on a Government motion. He referred again to the Griffiths report but, as I said last week, we have recently had a debate on this issue. I do not rule out the possibility of a further debate but I do not think it would be sensible to have another debate in the near future as the Government have not yet reached final conclusions on its proposals on this matter.
With regard to student loans, again, I have told the hon. Gentleman that the best time for a debate will be when the current discussions with the financial institutions have been concluded, and that is not yet.
With regard to the last point, I know that the hon. Gentleman has been trying quite hard to stir up a certain amount of interest in this matter of money spent on publicity but, as he well knows, these matters are covered by very strict rules and I reject entirely the view that the Government do not stick strictly to the rules that have been agreed.

Sir Fergus Montgomery: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to early-day motion 348?
[That this House deplores the animal suffering caused by the uncontrolled growth in the dog population, resulting in the destruction of an estimated 1,000 dogs in the United Kingdom every day; seeks to promote responsible dog ownership and to reduce the number of unwanted and abandoned stray dogs; is concerned about the cost in social and financial terms of environmental pollution and of accidents caused by dogs, and of attacks on livestock by dogs; supports the establishment of a nationwide dog warden service dedicated to the protection and control of dogs; and calls upon Her Majesty's Government to implement a national dog registration scheme as it is empowered to do under Clause 37 of the Local Government Act 1988.]
It has been signed by 233 hon. Members from all parts of the House and refers to the dog registration scheme. I remind my right hon. Friend that this is national pet week. We have a reputation for being animal lovers in this country and yet 1,000 healthy dogs are destroyed every day in the United Kingdom. I wonder, therefore, whether my right hon. Friend could find time next week to debate this important issue.

Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the concern, but the Government have made it clear that they do not consider that a registration scheme would do anything to assist dog welfare or control. I have to tell my hon. Friend that there are no plans to implement section 37. I recognise his concern about a debate, but I cannot promise him one in the immediate future.

Mr. James Wallace: The Leader of the House has, on a number of occasions when defending the introduction of guillotine motions, referred to the precedent set by the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) when he guillotined five Bills in one day. Does the right hon. Gentleman see some future Government of a different hue using as a precedent the guillotining of the Dock Work Bill after only 25 hours of debate in Committee, or are they so drunk on the anniversary spirit that they believe that this Government will go on for ever and ever?

Mr. Wakeham: The hon. Gentleman, if he was present yesterday and listened to the speech by his hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Mrs. Michie), will know that she indicated that she would prefer guillotines to be brought in earlier even than I bring them in.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Can the Leader of the House take early action to stop next week's business being frustrated or unduly delayed by filibusters from silly busters? Can he also give an assurance that next week he will not seek on Friday, as he did last Friday, to restrict the discussion of important Euro-measures to one and a half hours on the one day when there is plenty of time for discussing them? Will he bear in mind the Prime Minister's important words about the need to give more time to these Euro-measures and not to restrict the time unduly?

Mr. Wakeham: My hon. Friend raises a number of points but I must deal first with the debate yesterday. I would have thought that that had done more to stop it happening again than anything else. While it was an achievement to speak for four hours, it was an even greater achievement to be quite so boring for that length of time.
As my hon. Friend knows, I am not happy about the way in which the House deals with European legislation, and that view is held by many other people. I am having discussions to find out how the House would like the scrutiny of European legislation to be improved. I hope that it will not be too long before we have helpful suggestions from many people, including the Chairman of the Procedure Committee and the Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee—both of which Committees are examining that issue.
As to last Friday's motion, I do not consider that we slipped anything through. It seems to me that we tabled that motion in the proper fashion. The House approved it, which I think is excellent.

Mr. Peter Shore: Reverting to the subject of the Dock Work Bill, can the Leader of the House cite any precedent outside an emergency or an emergency powers Bill when a guillotine was introduced within three weeks of publication of the Bill itself? Are not the Government's action adding insult to injury? What kind of response does the right hon. Gentleman expect from the dock workers of this country?

Mr. Wakeham: I believe that the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), who is sitting just to the hon. Gentleman's left, when he was Leader of the House, introduced a guillotine after the Second Reading of one Bill, so I do not think that my action is unprecedented.

Sir Peter Emery: Will my right hon. Friend join me in encouraging right hon. and hon. Members having ideas about European legislation and how the House should deal with it to extend their thinking to the Procedure Committee, which at this moment is trying to find ways in which it can assist right hon. and hon. Members and the House generally to give greater consideration to European matters?

Mr. Wakeham: Provided that that is not an invitation to right hon. and hon. Members who would like to take all European legislation out to the North sea and sink it., I agree to my hon. Friend's request. The restrictions are such that we cannot find a great deal more time to debate European legislation, but we can find a way of using the existing time more effectively.

Mr. Eric S. Heller: This morning, the Prime Minister said on early morning TV that over the past 10 years the Government have improved the quality of people's lives. Can the House have an early debate on precisely that point? The Prime Minister can then explain how the quality of life has improved for those people who sleep each night in cardboard boxes because they are homeless. She can also explain to the House how the unemployed in my constituency and in other parts of the country are much better off under the present Government. She can explain how people's lives have been improved by cuts in social security benefits. She can explain how the Government have destroyed the nation's stability. The worst crime of all is that they have destroyed the stability of the nation. The Prime Minister should come to the House and explain those matters, so that we may challenge her and give the opposite view—rather than the right hon. Lady going on some nonsensical TV programme in the early morning.

Mr. Wakeham: I know that the hon. Gentleman feels strongly about the views that he expresses in the House. However, if he will examine the business for virtually the whole of next week, he will find that every one of the measures proposed by the Government is about improving the quality of life. I refer to the Finance Bill, and to our proposals for the National Health Service and for improving the efficiency of the docks. They are all about improving the quality of life, so I reject the hon. Gentleman's assertions.

Mr. Nicholas Baker: Is my right hon. Friend aware that a White Paper on changes in structure plans has still not been presented? Does he agree that there must be a debate before the Government introduce legislation on that subject? If so, when will that debate take place?

Mr. Wakeham: I recognise the importance of that subject and acknowledge that my hon. Friend has addressed me about it on more than one occasion. I wish that I could be more forthcoming. I cannot promise a debate early in the future, but I shall certainly bear his point in mind.

Mr. Doug Hoyle: I draw the attention of the Leader of the House to early-day motion 638, signed by 136 hon. Members, which deals with the de-recognition of trade union rights by Midland bank.
[That this House condemns the Midland Bank for unilaterally withdrawing bargaining and representative rights from the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union and regards this as a denial of civil liberties and the rights of the employees concerned in that they are unable to be represented by the union of their choice; and calls upon the Midland Bank, as a so-called listening bank, to listen to its employees and to reverse this unwarranted, controversial decision forthwith and to return to the non-confrontational, co-operative industrial relations which it previously enjoyed with the Manufacturing, Science and Finance Union.]
Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that people should have a right to join a trade union of their choice, that there should be a right to recognition for that union, and that the listening bank is not listening to its employees? Will he ask his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment to make an early statement?

Mr. Wakeham: I certainly cannot promise that and, from the mutterings that I hear from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Employment, I do not think that he is very much in the mood. It is entirely for employers to decide which union, if any, they wish to recognise for collective bargaining purposes. I see nothing wrong with that at all.

Mr. Rupert Allason: Does my right hon. Friend share the concern of many Devonians and other people in the west country, in particular that of my constituents, about the outflow of untreated raw sewage into the sea? Does he agree that the subject merits early debate before the privatisation of the water companies? Will he give urgent consideration to having such a debate as soon as possible?

Mr. Wakeham: I cannot promise my hon. Friend an early debate. I recognise that it is an important subject. However, a great many of the provisions in the Water Bill are designed, in the main, to improve the quality of our water.

Mrs. Alice Mahon: Will the Leader of the House find time for an urgent debate on manufacturing? Will he tell his Front Bench colleagues to stop pretending that a trade deficit in manufacturing, which it is forecast will amount to between £18 billion and £20 billion by the end of the year, is not serious? It is very serious and it matters to this country. When the oil runs out, how on earth shall we earn our living without a decent manufacturing base?

Mr. Wakeham: I should have thought that the hon. Lady, with her usual ingenuity, would be able to make some of those points in the debates next week on the Finance Bill, but that is not a matter for me. Her view of the trade deficit is perhaps a bit one-sided. I do not think that she recognises, for instance, that three quarters of the trade deficit arises from investment in productive equipment and from improving the manufacturing facilities of our country. That is something which was not achieved under the last Labour Government.

Mr. Ivan Lawrence: May I draw my right hon. Friend's attention to the one area in which the last 10 years

of Conservative Government have been a conspicuous failure—the failure to do anything about the indescribably filthy approach to this place in the underpass under Bridge street? It has gone on for years. At a time when the tourist industry is beginning to get into full gear, once again tourists are faced with what looks like a Third world country's pathetic attempt to clean up the approaches to the centre of democracy. Will he do something about it, please?

Mr. Wakeham: I agree with my hon. and learned Friend's analysis that there is too much litter about. I am not sure whether my responsibilities for organising next week's business quite fit into dealing with that matter, but I shall make inquiries and find out whether I have any responsibilities for it.

Mr. Michael Foot: Since the right hon. Gentleman seems so eager to cite precedents to defend his action over the guillotine, could I ask him to respond to the invitation that I have given to him on many previous occasions—I am sure that he must clinch the matter now, in view of what he has previously said—to hold a debate so that the House can see exactly what is the contrast between the measures that we introduced, for which I was responsible, and the right hon. Gentleman's far more frequent guillotines? Many more guillotines have been introduced by him than were introduced by any previous Government. Does the right hon. Gentleman not recognise that it is particularly offensive to impose a guillotine on the dock labour scheme, since the Government completely refused to hold any negotiations whatsoever with the unions concerned before the Bill was introduced?

Mr. Wakeham: The right hon. Gentleman is a formidable debater, but it seems to me that he will need all his skills if he is to develop the case that he developed earlier this week, that a lame duck Labour Government, of which he was a member, had a greater moral right to insist on getting their measures through Parliament than that of a Government who have achieved three decisive popular victories in a row. The right hon. Gentleman's theory, that the less support one has the more Bills one should be able to guillotine, is certainly a novel interpretation of the constitution.
What is more—I have some more news for the right hon. Gentleman—he will be on very shaky ground indeed if he presumes in the debate that he is urging me to hold to teach business management to me. He is the only Leader of the House since the war to have lost a guillotine motion. We all remember his guillotine days in 1976, when he could not get one of his Bills through, even with a guillotine.

Mr. Ivor Stanbrook: Now that the Bar Council, the Law Society, the Society of Apothecaries and Uncle Tom Cobbleigh and all have had their say about the Lord Chancellor's proposals for the reform of legal services, which I personally support, when will the House of Commons have a chance?

Mr. Wakeham: We had a debate late at night on the Lord Chancellor's salary order. Apart from my own, I thought that my hon. Friend made the only other sensible speech.

Mr. Roland Boyes: Is the Leader of the House aware that this year we are


celebrating a vitally important anniversary—the year of photography? What initiatives do the Government plan this year? If they have no suggestions, will the right hon. Gentleman consider allowing still photography in this place? If we are to have television, it seems ludicrous to allow television and not still photography, particularly when there are very fine and brilliant photo-journalists in Britain. Led by The Independent and followed by others, there is very sympathetic treatment of photography in newspapers. Will the Leader of the House produce some suggestions, not necessarily today but perhaps next week?

Mr. Wakeham: The first thing I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is certainly giving the photographers of the world plenty of practice in taking good family snaps at the moment. I agree that his point is a serious one. The Select Committee considering the televising of our proceedings is examining these matters and it would be quite wrong for me to give my views as to how that Select Committee should reach its conclusions in its report, which it hopes to do very soon. However, the hon. Gentleman has raised a serious point which we shall have to consider carefully.

Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: I very much support the recent application by the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heller) for a debate on the past 10 years under my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. Such a debate would give us the opportunity to explain to the nation how in those 10 years we have given power to parents, trade union members and council tenants. We have attracted inward investment and changed people's attitudes so that young people now want to run their own businesses. We could also explain how people now want to own shares in the company in which they work, and how difficult we find it to help people when they have the handicap of a Labour-controlled council.

Mr. Wakeham: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his support for the hon. Member for Liverpool, Walton (Mr. Heffer), although I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman sees it in quite the same way. However, I do not see a way of finding time for a special debate on the points he raises, although a number of them could well be made in the business already set down for next week.

Mr. Harry Cohen: I urge the Leader of the House to think again about arranging that debate on the past 10 years. Perhaps it would give the Opposition the opportunity to raise questions about the increasing public squalor of hospitals being closed, homes not being built, public cleaning not being properly financed, unemployment having doubled, inflation rising rapidly, at twice the rate of our industrial competitors, homelessness having gone through the roof and many other issues. Will the right hon. Gentleman think again, as we would welcome a debate on the past 10 years?

Mr. Wakeham: I recognise that there is popular support for such a debate. We all have our own statistics to quote on such occasions, but I am not moved. I cannot find time to arrange such a debate next week.

Mr. Harry Greenway: Will my hon. Friend look at early-day motion 767?
[That this House strongly deplores the proposed all out strike of London Underground staff from 8th May with the severe inconvenience and suffering it will cause for the

London public and the economy of London; and urges all concerned to think again and to continue to try to resolve their problems round the negotiating table, remembering that no problem is too large to be insoluble by responsible and fair negotiations.]
It tackles the serious matter of the proposed Underground strike for next Monday, which will cause huge damage to the economy of London and huge inconvenience and suffering to Londoners. Can we have an early debate or a statement, whether or not the strike takes place?

Mr. Wakeham: I certainly welcome the motion and I regret that there may be industrial action, rather than negotiation. Of course, the resolution of the dispute is a matter for the board and management, but I hope that the unions will take into consideration the many millions of people who have to use the Underground and think again before taking industrial action.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: Would next week be a good time for a debate on the quality of life in Whitehall? On a minor matter, can the Leader of the House explain how an Under-Secretary of State at the Home Office can appear on the BBC and talk about disallowed private notice questions, when the rest of us certainly cannot? Can he explain why it is that so mighty a personage as Mr. Bernard Ingham now refuses to meet the Institution of Professional Civil Servants.. which wants some kind of code of ethics? Can he tell us whether we can assume that it is now all right for a private secretary to the Prime Minister to authorise the improper disclosure of Law Officers' letters?

Mr. Wakeham: I have nothing further to add on the bulk of the hon. Gentleman's questions, except to say that I cannot arrange a debate on them next week.

Mr. Edward Leigh: On the subject of the right hon. Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot), does my right hon. Friend recall that the right hon. Gentleman was only able to impose his will—

Mr. Speaker: Order. Questions must be about a debate next week.

Mr. Leigh: We have a guillotine debate next week, Mr. Speaker. I was simply recalling that the right hon. Gentleman could impose his will on England simply because of his majority in Scotland. Does that not drive a coach and horses through the argument that English Members such as myself should not be allowed to vote on Scottish matters? Those who live by the unitary guillotine should die by it.

Mr. Wakeham: I am most reluctant to bring forward guillotine motions at any time because it is better that debates are settled by negotiation. However, they have to be brought forward by all Governments, and a unitary Parliament means that every hon. Member can vote on them equally.

Ms. Marjorie Mowlam: Will the Leader of the House consider a debate next week on the intolerable situation in Cleveland, arid elsewhere, where there are delays of up to eight months before Department of Social Security leaflets reach voluntary sector outlets, from which people can learn what benefits are available? I asked the right hon. Gentleman a question about that two months


ago and I would appreciate it if he did not advise that I write to the relevant Minister or ask a private notice question because I have obtained no information from those sources, short of being told that citizens advice bureaux have a special relationship and can obtain the information in a couple of days. Other organisations, such as housing trusts and agencies for the disabled, need that information so that people who need benefits can obtain them. This intolerable situation should be dealt with quickly.

Mr. Wakeham: I promise the hon. Lady that I shall look into the matter as soon as I leave the Chamber.

Mr. Nicholas Bennett: Notwithstanding the remarks of the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), who has been noticeable by his absence from the Dock Work Bill Committee, will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the fact that Conservative members of the Committee welcome next week's timetable motion? Is my right hon. Friend aware that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) spoke for two hours on Tuesday morning and was interrupted by the Chairman 10 times to be brought back to order, that the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) was brought back to order nine times in five minutes by the Chairman for tedious interruptions and that the hon. Member for Great Grimsby admitted that the Opposition were merely trying to delay the Bill? The timetable motion is long overdue.

Mr. Wakeham: I excuse the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Mitchell) because he must have found it a novel experience, when speaking in Committee, to have a large audience, rather than appearing on Sky Television.

Mr. Tony Lloyd: Will the right hon. Gentleman again turn his mind to the question of a debate on the Government's 10-year record? Will he take into account the fact that I have just taken to Downing street a delegation of people from all over the country—not just from the poor cities of the north—and that one member of that delegation carried with her a loaf of day-old bread? She bought it from a shop in Manchester which was selling it cheaply because people in that area cannot afford to buy fresh bread. Should Parliament not take such cases on board after 10 years of Thatcherism?

Mr. Wakeham: As the hon. Gentleman knows, he can quote a particular case and I cannot look into the details of it at the Dispatch Box. He also knows that the standard of living of all sections of the community has risen substantially under this Government.

Mr. Kenneth Hind: Will my hon. Friend take on board the advice of the right hon. Member for Blaenau, Gwent (Mr. Foot) that all is fair in love, war and parliamentary procedure? Will my right hon. Friend have mercy on Conservative members of the Committee considering the Dock Work Bill and not be diverted from his intention to guillotine the Bill which will abolish a monstrous system?

Mr. Wakeham: I believe that the time has come to deal with the Bill in an orderly fashion and that that would be to the benefit of the House. I do not think that, secretly, the Opposition disagree with me quite as much as they say.

Mr. Max Madden: Will the Leader of the House tear himself away from the Conservative party's celebrations of 10 years of Thatcherism and consider the problems of the victims of Thatcherism and the organisations that are trying to help them, such as the citizens advice bureaux? Has the Leader of the House seen early-day motion 710 about the citizens advice bureaux' golden jubilee?
[That this House notes that it is 50 years since the foundation of the Citizens Advice Bureau Service throughout the United Kingdom; and takes the opportunity of its Golden Jubilee to congratulate and thank all workers past and present, voluntary and paid, Management Committee members and professional supporters who have given help throughout the years, to ensure that citizens have access to independent, free, impartial information and advice on a confidential basis, in order that they will not suffer through ignorance of their rights and responsibilities.]
Does he know that the citizens advice bureau in Bradford celebrates its golden jubilee in September but that it is now on the brink of collapse because of cuts in its funding and uncertainty about future funding? Does the Leader of the House realise that its staff are working in intolerable conditions and that clients have to wait an average of two hours to be seen? As more and more Government Departments are urging the victims of Thatcherism to consult the citizens advice bureaux, it seems high time that the Government provided some funds to enable the CABs to carry out the help that the Government are making their victims seek from such organisations?

Mr. Wakeham: I do not look upon the hon. Gentleman as the most objective observer of the scene, but the Government congratulate the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux on its 50 years' service in providing information and advice to the public. I am sure that the whole House will wish to associate itself with that early-day motion.

Mr. Bill Walker: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the question that was asked earlier about access to this House, and may we have an early debate on that and related aspects? My right hon. Friend will be aware that in the 10 years of this Government, conditions and other aspects relating to hon. Members' activities have improved dramatically and out of all recognition. However, one problem still remains. Many of us are required to use the tube from Heathrow to Westminster and during the summer months we sometimes have to stand most of the way, often with heavy luggage—[Interruption.] I know that some colleagues may not give a favourable response to this, but my right hon. Friend will recollect that when I first became a Member of the House I had to wear a spinal jacket. Indeed, I still have problems with my spine as a result of my flying accident, and because of that I and other hon. Members in similar positions find such journeys difficult. Will some consideration be given to that aspect of our problems?

Mr. Wakeham: I certainly recognise the concern expressed by my hon. Friend. However, I do not see an early opportunity for a debate on the subject that he has raised, important though it is. I should have thought that my hon. Friend could find an opportunity of raising that matter, perhaps on the Adjournment of the House, which would seem more appropriate.

Mr. Tony Banks: Does it not smack of the "Iron Handbag" to have a sittings motion moved on the first day of Committee on the Dock Work Bill, which will also now have a guillotine motion moved on Monday, after only a few hours' debate? As the Government clearly do not want any amendments to be made to that Bill, thus leaving the Opposition to make all the running and allowing Conservative Members to sit in the Committee doing their constituency work and taking no part in the Committee proceedings, would it not have been more honest to consider that Bill on the Floor of the House? Are not the Government making a mockery of the Committee stages of Bills by allowing that to happen upstairs on the Committee Corridor? As we are talking about procedure, when are we to have a debate on private Bill procedure, a report on which we debated a few weeks ago?

Mr. Wakeham: I cannot promise a debate on the second subject in the near future. We had a good and interesting debate, with divided views from hon. Members of all parties and a pause to consider those views is the right thing.
I do not know how the hon. Gentleman conducted himself when he was in the late-lamented, or the not-lamented Greater London council—

Mr. Banks: Democratically.

Mr. Wakeham: —or whether he was a Member of the House under a Labour Government, but it does not seem a particularly strange idea that the Government should bring forward a Bill and be keen on having it enacted without too much amendment. That seems a perfectly normal sort of proceeding for a Government. It is the Opposition's job to propose amendments to Bills. That is perfectly reasonable, and I do not see what the hon. Gentleman is complaining about. The question is whether we are allowing enough time for the process to be dealt with decently and reasonably, and we think that we are.

Mr. Roger King: Notwithstanding my right hon. Friend's reply earlier concerning the prospect of a London tube strike commencing Monday, will he arrange for the Secretary of State for Transport to make an early statement to the House about how he intends to tackle the increased congestion that such a prolonged Underground strike might cause? Some proposals could include the lifting of parking restrictions on motorists, ensuring that busways are kept open, and seeing that there is extra space for commuting road coaches to be parked off street. If this is a prolonged stoppage, such measures will probably be found necessary.

Mr. Wakeham: If there is a need for a statement, my right hon. Friend will come to the House and make one. However, as I said in my earlier reply, the negotiations are between the management and the union. It is not for my right hon. Friend to make statements about those matters. The matters raised by my hon. Friend are important, and appropriate statements will be made if that is the best way of proceeding.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. It arises out of a question.

Mr. Speaker: No, we will have the statement first.

Risley Remand Centre

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): With permission, Mr. Speaker, I will make a statement about the incident at Her Majesty's remand centre Risley.
At 6.15 pm on Sunday 30 April, as inmates in B wing were being unlocked for evening association, a prison officer was confronted by an inmate brandishing a weapon who demanded the officer's keys. The keys were not surrendered, and the staff on duty withdrew from the landing leaving 17 inmates unlocked. These inmates then put up barricades and smashed cells. This incident was contained.
On the morning of I May, two officers were trapped on a landing in D wing by inmates who again erected barricades and caused systematic damage. The officers were released by staff breaking through the outer wall of the building after the trapped officers had locked themselves in a cell.
Inmates than broke through on to the roof of D wing. They had control of two landings, and access to the roof space and the roof. Staff retained control of the remaining landings of the wing. Yesterday, the inmates agreed to come down, provided that they were photographed and their solicitors were informed. This was agreed, and they were returned to custody at about 7.45 pm.
I am sure that right hon. and hon. Members will wish to join me in paying tribute to the bravery of prison service staff in containing this incident. There have been injuries to officers, but fortunately none of them has been very serious. I am also grateful for the immediate and highly professional help provided by the police.
Two hundred and fifteen inmates were moved from Risley to other prisons. I have set in train an urgent inquiry into the disturbances which will be conducted by Mr. Ian Dunbar, the regional director for the south-west. A police investigation is also under way. Criminal charges and prison disciplinary proceedings will depend on that investigation.
The shortcomings at Risley provide no justification for the destruction and violence which took place and which made those shortcomings worse. As 1 have told the House, I broadly accepted the criticisms made by Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons following his inspection of Risley. We have embarked upon a refurbishment and rebuilding programme which will transform the establishment. The refurbishment programme was due to be completed by autumn this year. That was a much-needed temporary improvement. We have decided to rebuild Risley entirely and the construction of new house blocks will begin at the end of August. Plans are for it to become a modern local prison holding both sentenced and remand prisoners, and work has already begun to this end.
Risley is overcrowded, but it is not undermanned. The staff-inmate ratio has improved even allowing for the effect of the fresh staff changes. Thinking more widely, we are taking steps to reduce both the number of people remanded in custody and the time taken to deal with cases awaiting trial. It is too early to draw any firm conclusions on the long-term effect of these measures on the people on remand, but the remand element in the prison system grew more slowly in 1988 than in any of the previous five years.


This year, the number of remand prisoners has actually fallen. The average remand population is about 500 lower so far during 1989 than the average last year.
The damage and lost places at Risley are a setback at a time when, in other respects, there are signs of more settled times in the prisons. The total prison population has been roughly steady for several months, new places are becoming available to relieve overcrowding, and staff are being recruited in large numbers and used to better effect. There are opportunities here that we do not intend to let slip.

Mr. Roy Hattersley: No one should either defend the violence at Risley or react to it in a way which might incite similar action in other prisons and remand centres during the summer. It is in that spirit that I ask the Home Secretary some questions about Risley.
Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the latest report on that remand centre, which he does not intend to publish, shows his Department to have been slow in implementing Judge Tumin's proposals to improve a prison which the judge himself described as barbarous and squalid? Does the Home Secretary understand that the real problem is remand and its contribution to overcrowding? Blandly to assert, as the Home Secretary did, that Risley is overcrowded, like many of our local prisons and remand prisons, is to make a statement of staggering complacency. Overcrowding is the Government's responsibility.
In his statement today, the Home Secretary played his usual statistical tricks. Certainly the number of remand prisoners is slightly smaller than it was a few months ago, but I am sure that the Home Secretary will confirm that it is twice as high as it was in 1979. Will he confirm that, over the past 10 years, the number of remand prisoners in British gaols has risen from 5,000 to 10,000? As 40 per cent. of those men and women will either be found not guilty or awarded non-custodial sentences, their frustration is understandable, to say the least, particularly as the length of time spent on remand has more than doubled over the past 10 years.
Therefore, once again, I ask the Home Secretary whether he will take the necessary action to reduce the remand population. First, will he introduce generally in England the rule which works successfully in Scotland—that all remand prisoners are brought to trial within 110 days? To talk of pilot schemes, as I am sure the Home Secretary will, is to misunderstand the urgency of the problem.
Secondly, will he use his influence to ensure that the courts are more consistent in granting bail? It is not a matter for the courts alone: as the Home Secretary knows, the Government can play a decisive part in the matter. Will he further increase the number of bail hostels which are available for remand prisoners?
Thirdly, does the Home Secretary not yet understand that what happened at Risley earlier this week is the direct result of the Government's penal policy—sending too many people to prison, keeping them there for too long, and failing to take the—

Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Whose job is that?

Mr. Hattersley: It is the job of people who legislate for long prison sentences and who will not give appropriate advice on appropriate prison sentences.
Does the Home Secretary realise that the Government are responsible, by failing to take the steps which could have resulted in the number of remand prisoners being reduced from its present intolerable level?

Mr. Hurd: I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman's first point, which is quite correct. I have read press reports, as has the right hon. Gentleman, of a later report by an inspector to the chief inspector, but I have not seen such a report. If the right hon. Gentleman forwards it to me with his comments, of course it will be considered. For the reasons which I have given, I believe that we have acted promptly on the criticisms of Risley in the chief inspector's report, both as regards the immediate refurbishment which I have described and the long-term transformation of the prison into a local prison.
The right hon. Gentleman concentrated on the remand population. He is perfectly right—there is no news in that. Over recent years, the population has grown both absolutely and as a proportion of the total. What is news and what I have imparted to the House, although the right hon. Gentleman has some difficulty in accepting it, is that, recently, in the total prison population as with the remand population, there has been a small improvement. The right hon. Gentleman is concealing his obvious satisfaction with that. He should be glad that the trend which he has advocated for a long time is just faintly beginning to appear. I would not put it higher than that.
The right hon. Gentleman went on to the details. Time limits are important. It is not a pilot scheme that we are introducing. What we are doing, in accordance with the permission given us by Parliament. is introducing time limits throughout England and Wales. On 1 April last year, they were extended to Wales and nine English counties, which included the Greater Manchester and Chester circuit, of relevance to Risley. On 1 June this year, they will be extended to most of the rest of England, including Merseyside, Cumbria, Lancashire, Staffordshire and West Yorkshire. The principle of time limits is not a matter of pilots: it is being applied. As time limits begin to work, they reduce delays. As they reduce delays, it will be possible to tighten them further. That is advice that I took a long time ago.
Equally, with hostels, there will be people whom magistrates might be willing to send to a bail hostel but to whom they would not be willing to give perfect freedom while they are awaiting trial. We are building up the bail hostel programme. There will be 500 extra places in bail hostels by 5 April 1991. The right hon. Gentleman did not mention bail information schemes, but the spread of such schemes from court to court makes it more likely that magistrates will have information about individual offenders which may lead them to feel that they can grant bail. He did not mention electronic monitoring. We are beginning trials in Nottingham, north Tyneside and Tower Bridge this summer to see if that technique can make a contribution to bringing down remand.
I hope that the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to convey the impression—I do not think he does—that magistrates are wrong in many cases in denying bail. There are two occasions when bail comes up in the House. The first is after an incident like this, when everyone says that too many people are remanded in custody. The other is


when someone on bail commits a fearful offence. Then I am told from all sides of the House that the Bail Act 1976 is far too lax. The Bail Act is about right. There is a presumption for bail. In certain circumstances magistrates are entitled to deny it. I do not think that anyone who has watched the events of the last four days at Risley could reasonably deny that, for the protection of citizens, it is inevitable that quite large numbers of people awaiting trial will be, and should be, remanded in custody.

Mr. John Wheeler: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is a general welcome on the Government side of the House for his statement and in particular for the remarks that he has just made about the proposals to reduce the remand population and improve the prison service as a whole? Does he accept that there is a recognition of the important part played by prison staff at Risley under the leadership of the governor at this difficult time? They did very well in controlling the situation. Will he confirm that the staff ratio at Risley is perhaps the highest that it has ever been in many years, at 1·5? Does he accept that it is most welcome that that rather unhappy institution is to be rebuilt? When it is rebuilt, will he ensure that the locking mechanism is electronic, so as to avoid the seizure of keys which led to the beginning of the incident? Will he accept that his contribution to improving the prison system by a huge 46 per cent. increase in expenditure this year is the highest ever?

Mr. Hurd: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. The point about the locking system is relevant and is one that Mr. Dunbar will want to cover. My hon. Friend is right about the staffing level. Obviously the fresh start changes and the abolition of a lot of overtime affect it, but even since fresh start, whereas the number of prisoners went down between 1988 and 1989 from 690 to 580, the number of staff went down by only 10. That is why the ratio of staff to inmates has improved.

Mr. Doug Hoyle: Will the right hon. Gentleman accept that it is with sadness and sorrow that I rise on this occasion? I want to joint in the tributes to the prison officers who showed bravery in difficult circumstances.
Will the inquiry's findings be made public? How will the inquiry affect the plans to change Risley into a local prison, which should come to fruition at the end of June or the beginning of July? Will the right hon. Gentleman see whether Risley could be rebuilt in less than eight years? Will he accept that a warning was put in the log on the Friday that disturbances were likely on the Sunday? Am I correct that there were only 25 discipline officers on duty on Sunday evening? If the right hon. Gentleman's reply is that many of the prisoners were locked away, is it not a fact that the locking away of prisoners like animals brings about such an incident?
Does he not agree that the remand system cannot be all that perfect when 5 per cent. are found to be innocent and 35 per cent. do not receive a custodial sentence? Is there not something gravely wrong with the system?

Mr. Hurd: As the Member of Parliament for the constituency, the hon. Gentleman has taken a close and constructive interest in Risley during the time that I have been responsible for it. I have asked Mr. Dunbar to prepare and present his report in the usual way, which is as a report to me. I doubt, therefore, whether it should be

published. I will ensure, however, that the hon. Gentleman in particular, but the House in general, receive a summary and the conclusions.
There will be no change or delay in the conversion of Risley into a local prison. The hon. Gentleman knows from his knowledge of the subject that that will take time, but there will be no going back on that.
I have nothing to substantiate the hon. Gentleman's remarks about the log, although I, too, have heard such reports. The log and the number of discipline staff available at the relevant time are obviously matters for the inquiry. I believe that the hon. Gentleman will agree—as I have heard the representative of the Prison Oficers Association say—that, even if there had been a substantial number of extra staff, that probably would not have averted what happened.
No one would claim that the remand system is perfect or that mistakes are not made in bail decisions. I have stated our measures to reduce to the minimum the numbers remanded in custody. However, I believe that it is clear that, even if all those measures were entirely effective, it is right and inevitable that, for the protection of the citizen, a large number of people—perhaps those accused of violent offences—are remanded in custody by the magistrates. We must find places for them.

Mr. Nicholas Budgen: Will my right hon. Friend remind the House of the number of people in the last recorded year who committed offences while on bail? Is it not a fact that if a person is refused bail, he has the opportunity to reverse that, perhaps wrong, decision by appealing to a judge in a Crown court? However, if the public interest is not adequately safeguarded by magistrates who grant bail too easily, there is no appeal. Will my right hon. Friend not listen to the suggestions of the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley) and, above all, avoid administrative interference in the discretion of the magistrates in deciding whether to grant or withhold bail?

Mr. Hurd: I cannot give the figure for which my hon. Friend has asked. However, he is right to say that it is precisely the number of such incidents that causes a great deal of public controversy and pressure on the Bail Act. The Bail Act makes it clear that the responsibility is with the courts, and that must remain so. The Bail Act is as clearly tilted towards a presumption of bail as is satisfactory and safe. There is room for greater concordance in magistrates' decisions on the granting of bail, but that is a matter for the magistrates. I want to create other options among which magistrates can choose, so that they are not left with just a choice between leaving X completely free while he awaits trial, or locking him up in such a place as Risley. The whole point of electronic monitoring and of bail hostels is to give magistrates a rather wider discretion than, in practice, they sometimes have now.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: I gladly join in the tribute paid to the officers and the police in their handling of this episode, but I express great concern that the Home Sectetary has betrayed again his gross complacency about those held on remand in this country. I draw his attention to the fact that, in each year that he has been Home Secretary, more than a score of young people have committed suicide on remand and that last year, on average, 11,439 prisoners were held on


remand, which was an increase on the previous years. What is it that makes him so complacent and so shameless in seeking to defend the small steps taken as adequate to deal with a national scandal? Why does he do so little—by his own admission, a mere 500 additional places in bail hostels by 1991—to solve this appalling situation?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman is being silly, which is not characteristic. I am not the least complacent, either about the prison system in general or about the remand population in particular. What I have listed is a series of measures—I believe unmatched in the past—for improving a deeply unsatisfactory situation.
I must remind the House that, although it is perfectly right for the reasons I have given—I believe that most of the House accept them—that we should take measures to reduce the remand population where possible, the other side of the equation, which the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) persistently ignores in all our debates, is that the citizen requires protection. If we were to change the law and lean on the magistrates so that a larger number of people who may be accused of violent offences were given bail—

Mr. Hattersley: Most of them are not violent.

Mr. Hurd: Hon. Members will have seen what happened on the roof of Risley and what preceded it. Without prejudging any particular cases, what people have seen on their television screens during the past few days has reinforced the notion held by most of them that—I state again—it is inevitable and right that quite a substantial number of people awaiting trial will need to be remanded in custody. It is realistic to say that, not complacent. We must provide adequate, decent, austere places for that purpose.

Mr. Kenneth Hind: My right hon. Friend has handled the situation at Risley extremely well and I am sure that most of my hon. Friends would support him, the police and the prison authorities in the action that they have taken.
There are lessons that we can learn from this particular incident. Before 1995, my right hon. Friend plans to provide a further 25,000 prison places. Does he consider that there is a strong argument for dividing the prison system from the remand system and that we should look carefully at the system operated in many American cities, where remand centres are close to court centres? At those centres, alienation is reduced by improving the standards of family and legal visits and by improving the standard of care. We should accept at the same time, however, that there are people who are a danger to the community and who are likely to offend or intimidate witnesses, and that such people need to be kept in custody.

Mr. Hurd: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend that we need to be open to new ideas within the framework that he has suggested—that we should consider the design, construction and management of remand centres. I made a statement on that a few weeks ago. Because our situation is serious, I believe that we should be ready to learn and listen, as the Select Committee on Home Affairs recommended to us.

Mr. Alfred Morris: Is the Home Secretary aware that, during the disorders at Risley, inmates were taken from there to Strangeways prison in Manchester? What further strain did that impose on the staff and prisoners alike at a gaol that is already dangerously overcrowded? What can he say today to allay the fears of those in Manchester who feel that, unless further action is taken soon, we shall have still further ugly scenes at the Manchester prison?

Mr. Hurd: The right hon. Gentleman is right, and it applied not only to Strangeways but also to Armley prison in Leeds, both of which are operating in great difficulty in terms of overcrowding. An absolutely necessary result of the action that was taken by some of the inmates at Risley was that others had to be moved quickly to where there was just space to accommodate them. We have had to use a few police cells but, for reasons with which the right hon. Gentleman will agree, that is a highly unsatisfactory practice, and we kept it to a minimum.
Undoubtedly, the action taken by the inmates has put a strain on other, already crowded prisons, such as Strangeways, as the right hon. Gentleman says, and there can be no denying that. We must now pick up the pieces and restore the accommodation at Risley, and at the other places which are now becoming available thanks to the programme which we have set in hand and which the Opposition have consistently denounced.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Does the Home Secretary appreciate that, while most people are aware of the huge effort that he has made to get more resources for the prison building and reconstruction programme, many people felt heartily sick to see the prison governor on television stating publicly that he had agreed to the full demands by the prisoners' so-called shop stewards, which included their being photographed by a particular newspaper as they disengaged from their costly vandalism? How much damage was caused? Does my right hon. Friend accept the principle that those who committed acts of vandalism should be strongly disciplined?

Mr. Hurd: I cannot assess the total damage, but it was clearly substantial. I said in my statement that a police investigation was in hand and that criminal proceedings, and possible prison disciplinary measures, would obviously need to be considered as a result of that investigation.
My hon. Friend is wrong about the so-called negotiations. There was no negotiation on matters of substance. It was simply a matter of timing and who should be present when they came down. He is also astray on the question of photographs. We are not allowed by law to take individual photographs of unconvicted prisoners. It may prove satisfactory that, at the request of the inmates, we have been able to do so.

Mr. Eric S. Heffer: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the situation in Liverpool prison is now rather bubbling because of what happend at Risley and that 60 remand prisoners have been transferred there? It is true that 30 detached staff have been put into Liverpool prison, which is already overcrowded and understaffed. Is the right hon. Gentleman further aware that the first reaction of some of the prison inmates in


Liverpool was, on exercise, to stage a sit-down? Clearly, immediate action must be taken by the Government to get rid of unnecessary remand prisoners.
I do not know all the answers. I wish I did. There must be some immediate action; otherwise the situation in Liverpool could get very difficult indeed. We are already aware of the terrible overcrowding and conditions in that prison. I urge the right hon. Gentleman to look into the matter seriously and to act quickly to avoid difficulties that otherwise are likely to arise.

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman puts the point fairly. When inmates create that type of damage and put out of action that amount of space at Risley, there is bound to be a strain elsewhere, and the right hon. Gentleman described the strain at Liverpool. The remarks of his right hon. Friend the Member for Sparkbrook were wise in that respect. and I hope that no one, whether hon. Members or leaders of the POA, will give any encouragement to the copycat notion, which is always a danger in prisons when events such as this occur.
I have listed the measure that we are taking to provide possibilities for the courts other than remand in custody, but I do not believe it would be right for us to ask the House to change the Bail Act or for the Government to give instructions to the magistrates to go against what, in their judgment, case by case, they believe to be necessary for the protection of the right hon. Gentleman's constituents and others.

Mr. Tony Favell: Is my right hon. Friend aware that there is an answer to the problem? It is to introduce private sector involvement into the running of remand centres and the taking of prisoners to and from court—the type of measures that my right hon. Friend announced four or five weeks ago. Can he announce the timetable for those steps? Will he take it from me that many of his hon. Friends deeply resent the attacks made on him by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook (Mr. Hattersley)? My right hon. Friend has done more to ease this problem through the introduction of time limits than any Home Secretary for 40 or 50 years.

Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend is being unfair. The hon. Member for Sparkbrook was in one of his statesmanlike modes this afternoon and I do not need protecting from him on this occasion. As my hon. Friend said, I told the House some weeks ago that, following the Select Committee's report, the possibilities of private management of remand and of escort duties are well worth pursuing. I told the House of the steps that we were taking to pursue those possibilities. It will require a change in the law if they are to be effected.

Mr. Tony Worthington: I ask the Secretary of State not to set his face against any further change in the clarity of advice to the courts or the training of magistrates. It is worrying that 40 per cent. of those on remand are either found not guilty or do not receive custodial sentence. I hope that, when the Minister of State addresses the Centre for Policy Studies on sentencing in a few weeks time, he will bring with him some ideas, or, at least, will not be as immoveable on this matter as the Secretary of State has been today.

Mr. Hurd: There is nothing immoveable about our position. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the figure he quoted is worrying. Why has this situation arisen? Certainly, in some cases, magistrates feel that they do not know enough about the young man in front of them and therefore play safe and sentence him to remand in custody, as would the hon. Gentleman.
If sufficient information were immediately available to magistrates about the defendant's family background and job, which the bail information scheme gives, it would be more likely that magistrates would decide to give bail.
In addition, magistrates may feel that they are not happy for the defendant to be entirely free during that time. If it were shown that electric monitoring and the curfew principle worked, or if they knew that there was a well-run bail hostel in the neighbourhood, they could take either of those two options, rather than send a man on remand to somewhere such as Risley. We are not immoveable about considering such practices and possibilities, but are actively developing them. I hope that they are beginning to produce results.

Mr. John Greenway: I am sure that, having seen on television the events that occurred at Risley the public will be glad of the prompt action of the police and prison officers. I am sure that they were equally glad that the magistrates recommended that those people should be remanded in custody. I am sure that they will welcome my right hon. Friend's statement that the protection of the public must be paramount in deciding whether prisoners are kept on remand in custody. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in tackling prison overcrowding with the range of measures that he has outlined, it is also important to take more action to classify remand prisoners? Not all the prisoners in Risley caused the damage.
One of the proposals in the Green Paper that was outlined some months ago recommended that more would be done about the classification problem. That is important if there are to be more bail hostels. One fifth of those in bail hostels abscond, which is not entirely satisfactory. I hope that my right hon. Friend will pursue this matter with the urgency with which he is pursuing the other measures.

Mr. Hurd: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. On Friday I visited B wing at Hull prison, which has some of the same problems as Risley. One wing suffers from the same disadvantages of design. A large number of remand prisoners tend to bully others, while a minority are bullied. That is true of most remand centres, so categorisation is crucially important.
In my moment of irritation, I failed to pick up an important point made by the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan), on which my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) almost touched: the problem of suicides. When a suicide occurs it is always a disaster and a tragedy, and even more so in prison than outside. That is why we have worked out, and are applying, the lessons which have, I hope, been learned. We must try to categorise and spot dangers as best we can, then try to communicate effectively with those whom we believe to be in danger. That is an important point.

Mrs. Alice Mahon: The Secretary of State will be aware that I recently made representations to his Department about constituents who have been in Armley. Given the seriousness of recent events and conditions


there, I am staggered by the complacency that he and his Department have shown this afternoon. We shall never know whether the young people on remand in Armley who killed themselves were innocent or whether they were a danger to the public, because, sadly, they are now dead.
How many of the 215 prisoners who have been moved from Risley will go to Armley? Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that his Department was warned that closing Thorpe Arch to young remand prisoners could lead to the recent tragedies in Armley? If others are to go to Armley and conditions there get worse, what special measures does he intend to take to alleviate those problems. How many more staff will he provide and what special measures will he take to try to prevent any more tragedies there?

Mr. Hurd: I have already volunteered, in answer to an earlier question about Strangeways, the information that some of the inmates of Risley were transferred to Armley. Whether detached staff follow them, as they have elsewhere, or how long they will have to stay, I do not know, but I shall let the hon. Lady know.
I hope that the hon. Lady will not be entirely captured by the argument that suicides and attempted suicides are the result of conditions, whether in Armley, Risley or anywhere else. I do not believe that that is so. The correlation is not clear. The hon. Member for Warrington, North (Mr. Hoyle) is nodding in agreement. That is clear if one looks at the individual cases. They have to be looked at carefully. Often it is the prospect of trial, the existence of charges, their shadow and, perhaps, the collapse of personal life that results which produces the outcome.
There has also been the story which got around in Armley, to which my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State drew attention—that a prisoner was more likely to be given bail if he did himself some injury. I am not denying that in some cases what the hon. Lady says may be true, but I ask her not to over-simplify. There are many reasons which may result in such a tragic decision, and we have to ferret them all out as best we can in advance. That will not always be possible, but that is what we must try to do.

Mr. Geoffrey Dickens: Does my right hon. Friend agree that when the Conservative party returned to power the then Home Secretary, my noble Friend Lord Whitelaw, announced one of the biggest prison building programmes that hon. Members have ever experienced, a momentum which future Administrations carried on? Does he also agree that, if the police make strong objections and it is right for a prisoner not to be granted bail, that must be in the public interest because there were strong reasons to suggest either that the prisoner might abscond or that he might abscond and commit further serious offences? Therefore, bail is given in the public interest according to the circumstances.
Does my right hon. Friend also agree that there are no votes in building prisons? He knows how angry I am about the remand prison proposed for Milnrow in Rochdale in my constituency, and how cross I have been that Rochdale council was too co-operative in those early days in talks with the Home Office. However, if it is in the public interest for prisoners not to receive bail, that has to be done. We cannot start changing the rules of the courts

because of bricks and mortar, but we are doing more than any other Government, and the prisoners should understand that.

Mr. Hurd: I agree with all my hon. Friend's points. My noble Friend Lord Whitelaw, I think last week, opened the new prison at Garth. The latest example of the prison building programme. It has taken far too long to build prisons, partly because of planning difficulties. I shall look carefully to see what sites are available in my hon. Friend's constituency now that I know that I have his co-operation.

Mr. Tom Cox: Is the Home Secretary aware that, whenever we get prison disturbances, as we do quite regularly, he comes along and makes the identical statement that he has made today, to the effect that everything possible is being done? Why, then, is there such unrest within the prison service? He must know, his advisers must tell him, that, as any hon. Member with a prison within his or her constituency who has contact with that prison and the people who run it will say, there is always an underlying situation that could ignite at any time. Last week it ignited in Risley.
Until the Home Secretary realises that it is the numbers that are the root problem within our prison system, until we get the numbers down, until we get meaningful work in the prisons, until we get men and women out of their cells, where they are often locked up for hour after hour, we shall continue to have explosions within our prison service. When the Home Secretary faces the fact that the important thing is not building prisons but getting the numbers down there is a real possibility that we shall start to tackle the whole issue of the prison service in this country.

Mr. Hurd: Both I and my hon. Friend visit prisons regularly. When I do so, I always ask that I have a period alone with members of the POA and the board of visitors. So I think that I get as clear a notion as anybody of the underlying tensions and dangers which of course exist. The hon. Member is perfectly right to say that they are due, not wholly—because running a prison in a society with as many violent people in it as we and the rest of western Europe have is a dangerous business—but partly to overcrowding. That is partly the result of neglect in the past.
If I had taken the advice of the Opposition and stopped the prison building and refurbishment programme the position at Risley, instead of being serious, would have been a total disaster. It is precisely because we have a little hope, thanks to the modernisation programme, that we are able to make progress. But certainly we have to work towards the elimination of overcrowding. That is why I am glad, as I said at the end of my statement, that for the last few months the total population of the prisons has been roughly steady. Meanwhile, thanks to our programme, new places are becoming available, with the hope, despite the setback at Risley, that the position which the hon. Member describes will slowly improve.

Mr. Tony Lloyd: Will the Home Secretary accept that, while I agree with him that the level of violence cannot be justified by the disgusting conditions at Risley, it is quite disgusting that he is so clearly complacent about those conditions and the fact that they inevitably had an impact on the behaviour of those in Risley over the last four days? He quite fairly congratulates the POA on the role it has played this week, but that would come a bit


better from him if he listened to those voices within the POA telling him that they do not feel that they have the resources or the training to deal with those who are mentally ill, are drug addicts or have any of the other behavioural problems found within an institution such as Risley. That is a significant part of the problem that has arisen there.
The right hon. Gentleman has been questioned and criticised by my hon. Friends about the conditions of remand prisoners in the north-west, and beyond the north-west, as a result of Risley. Can he tell the House, as he ought to, what steps he will take to alleviate the build-up of tensions at Walton, Strangeways, Armley and all those prisons in which pressure will have increased because of the events at Risley?

Mr. Hurd: We shall do this by detaching staff to meet the new responsibilities and limiting those responsibilities in time as much as we can. But that will depend on the assessment of how quickly we can bring the cells at Risley back into operation and what space elsewhere may be available. That is a major prison management task in the north, thanks to the action taken by the inmates at Risley,—[Interruption.]—by some inmates at Risley who have done a great deal of damage.
On the question of staffing, this is, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, a matter which the POA constantly and naturally presses. Since 1979, the total of staff has risen by 45 per cent. while the number of inmates has risen by 16 per cent. In the last year, we have recruited 1,600 prison officers, of which 900 represent net growth, after allowing for retirement and wastage. Obviously, these are needed to man the new prisons. Although, as the hon. Gentleman says, this point is constantly argued, I do not believe that the record on staffing is bad. Staff time and talent is much better used than it was when the system depended on a great deal of inefficient overtime.

Mr. Hattersley: The Home Secretary says that he is a supporter of the 110-day trial rule, and claims to be its instigator. The right hon. Gentleman says that it has passed through its pilot stage and that he is happy that it is operating successfully in Manchester. Why does he not refute allegations of complacency by applying the 110-day rule all over Britain, and so automatically and inevitably reducing the remand population?

Mr Hurd: The right hon. Gentleman is wrong to talk about the 110-day rule. In England and Wales, the time limits are flexible; that is, they vary from place to place. I gave the timetable in which I am introducing those limits. Before one can introduce them sensibly, there must be discussions with the Crown prosecution service and with

other people concerned, to ensure that they are fixed reasonably. I have experienced some difficulty with the right hon. Gentleman's own city. If he makes inquiries, he will discover why Birmingham said that it was difficult for it to accept the same kind of restrictions that I imposed on the rest of the west midlands.
That work must be done realistically, but it is being done. This afternoon, I announced the next stage, beginning on 1 June. When the whole of England and Wales is covered, we can begin, in the light of experience, to tighten and reduce the time available. That will have some effect on the remand population.

Questions to Ministers

Mr. Tony Banks: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. I refer to your earlier ruling about not allowing supplementary questions to open ministerial questions. Speaking for myself, I am concerned about that ruling, because it affects the ability of Opposition Members to catch Ministers on the hop. Were it not to apply, Opposition Members would have an opportunity to be somewhat more immediate in terms of the subjects that they raise in supplementary questions. As I believe that problems arise out of the use of syndicates of right hon. and hon. Members, would it not be better to act against such syndicates rather than move against open questions to Ministers, which give Opposition Members in particular an opportunity to put Ministers on the spot? Will you, Mr. Speaker, examine the question of syndicates? Perhaps the matter might be referred to the Procedure Committee for examination in greater detail.

Mr. Speaker: I enunciated nothing new today, for that has always been the rule. I merely drew attention to that ruling because there were five questions on the Order Paper early in the day that were clearly open questions. As the hon. Gentleman's second point, I am aware of the problem of syndicates. When right hon. and hon. Members are not present, very often it is because they have forgotten or that a syndicate has put in a question for them. I welcome the hon. Gentleman's referring that matter to the Procedure Committee, because that practice is not beneficial to our procedures.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Ordered,
That the Plant Health (Great Britain) (Amendment) Order 1989 (S.I., 1989, No. 553) be referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.
That the draft Legal aid (Functions) (No. 2) Order 1989 he referred to a Standing Committee on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.—[Mr. Fallon.]

Orders of the Day — Police Officers (Central Service) Bill [Lords]

Order for Second Reading read.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hogg): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
The purpose of the Bill is to amend section 43 of the Police Act 1964 and section 38 of the Police (Scotland) Act (1967) so as to overcome difficulties that have arisen over the status of police officers seconded from their own forces to central service—that is, temporary service under the Crown.
Most of those officers are engaged in training duties at the police staff colleges and district police training centres, but they also include the staff officers to the inspectors of constabulary, members of the police research services unit, and officers engaged in various liaison duties. Their numbers are relatively small. There are only some 600 police officers on central service in England and Wales and in Scotland out of a total police strength of 138,000. However, the services that they help to provide are vital to the efficiency of the police services.
The problem, briefly, is this. Section 43 of the Police Act 1964 provides that an officer on central service is to be treated as though he were not a member of a police force for the duration of his secondment. The position is the same in Scotland. The effect is that a police officer on central service has no police powers, no right to wear a uniform, no protection under section 51 of the Police Act 1964, which makes it an offence to assault a constable in the execution of his duty, and no right to membership of a police staff association.
There are occasions when seconded police officers need to wear police uniforms in public. Staff officers to the inspectors of constabulary need to do so when accompanying the inspectors on their visits of inspection. Officers at district training centres need to do so when they are in charge of parties of probationer constables outside the premises.
An officer in police uniform would be expected by members of the public to exercise police powers if the circumstances demanded it. A central service officer would therefore find himself in a very difficult position if prompt action were needed that called for the use of police powers. He would be faced with the choice of ignoring his lack of police powers and taking the necessary action or deciding not to become involved. In such circumstances a constable, or most constables, would act instinctively as a police officer and take the necessary action—and I believe that they would be right to do so.
We now face a problem, because, before 1964, there was no statutory provision for common police services. Such services were provided on an ad hoc basis, with the officers who were seconded to perform them remaining members of their parent forces. That was not a very satisfactory arrangement. Although the seconded officers were performing duties for which the Secretary of State was ultimately responsible, they were not answerable to

him. They were answerable to the chief officers of their parent forces. That produced a blurring of the lines of management responsibility and a potential conflict of loyalties.
In 1964 the opportunity was taken to put central service arrangements on a more rational basis. As central services officers are performing duties for which the Secretary of State is ultimately responsible, it is felt—quite rightly—that they should be answerable to him. That, essentially, is what section 43 of the Police Act 1964 provides.
It might be argued that, as the police service has been able to live with these problems for 25 years, there can be no great need for action to be taken to address them now. I do not think that that is the correct view. If there is a need for central service officers to wear police uniform in public when performing their central service duties, they should have the right to do so. If that means that they may occasionally need to exercise police powers when the circumstances demand, they should retain those powers.
Like any other police officer, central service officers should be given protection against assault and they should have the right to belong to the appropriate police staff association.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Before my right hon. Friend leaves that point, can he say whether the Bill will apply to the small number of Police Act forces in ports, such as the Port of London police, who I understand were covered by the 1964 Act?

Mr. Hogg: I concede that I do not know the answer to that question. I shall take guidance, and, if I am permitted to wind up, I shall give my hon. Friend a reply.
I turn to the provisions of the Bill. Subsection (1) of clause 1 provides for the insertion of three new subsections after section 43(3) of the Police Act 1964.
The new subsection (3A) gives police officers the right to wear uniform, the right to exercise police powers, if the need arises, and the right to remain members of the Police Federation. It also gives them the protection against assaults which is provided by section 51 of the 1964 Act.
The new subsection (3B) makes the Secretary of State liable for any torts committed by central service officers in the exercise of their police powers. This liability is likely to arise very rarely, if at all, but a remedy for torts and a liability in tort must be provided.
As central service officers are answerable in law to the Secretary of State for the performance of their central service duties, it seems right that he should be liable for any torts committed by such officers in the exercise of their police powers.
The new subsection (3C) makes it clear that police officers who are seconded as advisers are to be regarded as being on central service. Subsection (2) of clause 1, provides for the Bill to have retrospective effect. This provision protects the position of central service officers who may in the past have acted—either from ignorance of the legal position or in what they regarded as the public interest—as though they possessed the powers and privileges of police officers. We have no records of any such cases, but there could be some. The position needs to be covered.
Clause 2 deals with Scotland, where the present position is broadly the same as that in England and Wales. It is clearly desirable that the legislation relating to police


officers on central service should remain consistent on both sides of the border. Clause 2 implements that objective.
This is a small Bill, but it is desirable and not, I believe, controversial. I commend it to the House.

Mr. Barry Sheerman: This is one of the few occasions when the Opposition find very little to argue over. This is a non-controversial Bill. I do not intend unnecessarily to delay the proceedings by doing what comes naturally to most hon. Members—trying to spin out a long speech when a short one would do.
The Opposition support the Bill. Most of us thought that the provisions were already incorporated in the existing legislation, and it comes as a surprise to learn that they are not. Most of the provisions are completely sensible. It is absolutely right that central service members should be able to wear uniform, have police powers and be members of the Police Federation or the appropriate staff association. It is also right that the police should be provided with protection against assault.
Two small points have been drawn to my attention. The first concerns the nature of the disciplining of officers who are seconded to the central service. I hope that when he replies to the debate the Minister will answer that point in a constructive spirit. The Police Complaints Authority said recently that it is concerned about the fact that a large number of complaints against the police run into the ground because police officers take early retirement on grounds of ill health. I draw that parallel only because I understand that if someone is seconded to central service, disciplinary action cannot be taken if a complaint is upheld against him. Disciplinary action might be evaded if someone is transferred to central service. The legislation ought to cover such a possibility.
Secondly, when a person is seconded to central service it is not entirely clear to us whether the provisions covering personal financial arrangements and outside business interests, which are incompatible with status as a police officer, will also apply to those who are seconded to central service. Does the Bill provide that the code of conduct that applies to police officers will also apply to someone who is seconded to central service? Those are the only two points that worry the Opposition.

Mr. Michael Shersby: I wish first to declare an outside interest. I am the parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation.
The Police Federation warmly welcomes the Bill. My hon. Friend the Minister has explained to the House that it enables police officers on central service to be treated as members of police forces for the jurisdiction of constables. It also makes them eligible for membership of the Police Federation and provides them with protection against assaults and the right to wear a uniform. Those are two important rights for any officer who is on central service.
The Bill makes it clear that central service is temporary service under the Crown as it relates to those services that the Home Secretary provides to promote the efficiency of the police. It is therefore a short but nevertheless important Bill. I agree entirely with the Minister that the Bill needed to be introduced, and it ought to be passed by

Parliament. The fact that this unsatisfactory state of affairs has continued for some years is no reason for allowing it to continue.
While it may seem astonishing to the man in the street that a police officer seconded from his or her force to central service may experience difficulty over status, that is indeed the case. As my hon. Friend told the House, there are some 600 police officers on central service in England, Wales and Scotland. The services in which they are engaged include the police staff colleges, the district police training centres, the forensic science laboratories and the staff officers to the inspectors of constabulary. They make an important contribution to the efficiency of the police service.
The House will perhaps be surprised to learn that a police officer on central service ceases to be a member of a police force. That came as a surprise to me, and I have no doubt that it has come as a surprise to other hon. Members. He has no powers, no right to wear a uniform, no legal protection from assault in the exercise of his duty and no right to membership of the Police Federation or other police staff associations. That unsatisfactory state of affairs has existed for a long time and needs to be remedied.
It is for that reason that clause 1(2) has retrospective effect. All hon. Members pause when they hear the word "retrospective". The purpose of the clause, however, is to safeguard those officers who have acted in the public interest as though they had had since 1964 the powers that are normally expected of them. I see this as clarification of the existing position rather than as the conferring of new powers on a retrospective basis.
Although the Police Federation warmly welcomes the Bill, there are several points which I hope my hon. Friend will be able to clarify. It appears that, as a result of specifying the provisions in the proposed new section 43(3A), a person engaged on central service shall be treated as though he were a member of his police force. It follows that, in relation to the remaining sections of the 1964 Act, a person, as a result of the existing provisions of section 43(1), shall be treated as though he were not a member of the force in question.
One of the principal purposes of the Bill is to provide that police officers on central service are treated as members of police forces for the purpose of eligibility for the Police Federation. Therefore, an important distinction must be made between the eligibility of officers on central service being members of the Police Federation and the Police Federation's rights to represent such officers for the purposes of negotiations or consultations.
Let us consider for example the police advisory boards established by the Police Act 1964. Section 46(2) of that Act provides:
The constitution and proceedings of each of the Police Advisory Boards shall be such as the Secretary of State may determine after consulting organisations representing the interests of police authorities and of members of police forces and police cadets.
Whereas section 46(2) makes reference to the Secretary of State determining the constitution and proceedings of each police advisory board after consulting the organisations representing the police forces, will my hon. Friend say whether the Secretary of State is under an obligation to consult the Police Federation in its capacity as


representing those members on central service, unless those officers are to be treated as members of their police force for the purpose of section 46?
Furthermore, and perhaps more important, there are the provisions of the Police Negotiating Board Act 1980. As my hon. Friend will be aware, section 1 of that Act provides for the consideration by the board of questions relating to hours of duty, leave, pay and allowances, pensions, or the issue and return of police clothing, personal equipment and accoutrements. Similar considerations apply to the Police Negotiating Board Act 1980 as to section 46 of the Police Act 1964. Although central service officers may be members of the Police Federation, arguably the Police Federation may not represent their interests on the negotiating board without any amendment to the 1980 or 1964 Acts.
I hope that those matters will be clarified during the debate and dealt with in Committee so that officers engaged on central service shall be treated as if they were members of their police force for the purpose of the Police Act 1964 and the Police Negotiating Board Act 1980. They are clearly very important to officers engaged on central service. I do not wish to detain the House any further, except to repeat that the Police Federation warmly welcomes the Bill and hopes that it will have a speedy passage through Parliament.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: The only oddity about the Bill is that it has taken a quarter of a century to come before the House. It enjoys the support of hon. Members on both sides of the House and need not delay us long.
I should like the Minister to amplify the reasons why the Bill is retrospective. It is somewhat odd that he has chosen to make the Bill operate retrospectively when, apparently, he is not aware of the number of incidents involving central service police officers who have acted as though they possessed the powers and privileges of police officers in each year since the Police Act 1964. I wonder whether his decision to legislate was taken in response to a general representation about the desirability of that change, which is obviously understood, whether or not there are outstanding cases that may be affected by the retrospective provisions.
The Minister's written answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) suggested that he did not have the information that might have thrown some light on the reasons for the retrospective provisions, but the Minister did not address the matter directly this afternoon. Perhaps he will do so in his concluding remarks when he hopes to reply to the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor).
It seems right that there should be no doubt that police officers on central service can use police powers that they would enjoy when attached to their force and that they should have legal protection against assault. Can the Minister say whether there have been cases in which that lack of cover has presented a problem? Clearly it is a problem theoretically, but we do not usually legislate to deal with theoretical problems.
I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying the import of the Bill's provisions.

Mr. John Wheeler: I shall speak briefly in support of the Bill. Like other hon. Members who have spoken so far, I warmly welcome the Bill, not only because it removes an anomaly in the Police Act 1964 and the Police (Scotland) Act 1967, but because it demonstrates the willingness of the Home Office to amend the 1964 Act where change is necessary to produce a more efficient and effective police service.
The services concerned with the amendment to section 43 of the 1964 Act fulfil many valuable functions on behalf of individual police forces, and those services should be organised on a national basis. They include the police staff college at Bramshill into which my Select Committee on Home Affairs has recently inquired.
It is clearly anomalous that officers in central service posts should not hold the historic office of constable. Although there may not have been many occasions when officers on central service have been called upon to perform police duties involving the exercise of jurisdictional powers, that is more likely to happen in future years, especially now that more than 600 officers of all ranks are involved in those duties—a not inconsiderable number.
I mention that point because I feel that it is probable that the number of central service posts will increase as time goes on in response to those policing problems which clearly require a national response and a common solution. I note the growing importance being placed on the Association of Chief Police Officers achieving co-operation between the 43 police forces in England and Wales. It is for consideration whether a strengthened ACPO secretariat should become part of central services.
The Bill also removes the Police Complaints Authority from its position as a central service. That change is supported by the authority, and will doubtless help to reinforce its perceived and actual independence.
There are only two minor queries that I wish to raise. First, it does not extend to Northern Ireland. I fully appreciate the reason for that. As Northern Ireland has only one force—the Royal Ulster Constabulary—it has no need for combined central services.
Nevertheless, from my visits to the police staff college at Bramshill, I am aware that some of the staff there are from the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Are officers from the RUC on the staff at Bramshill to lack the jurisdiction of constables and eligibility for membership of staff associations held by officers on the staff from England, Wales and Scotland? That point will be of particular interest to my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby), who so ably represents the Police Federation of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
If a central service officer were to engender a complaint of misconduct while exercising the powers of a constable vested in him by the Bill, the question would arise as to who should take responsibility for the complaints process under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Would the Secretary of State for England and Wales—the Home Secretary—or would the Secretary of State for Scotland be liable? Would the Secretary of State, who is liable in respect of torts committed by that officer under new subsection 43 (3B) of the Police Act 1964, be responsible, or would it be the chief constable of the force to which the officer was said to belong under subsection (3A)? I should be grateful for clarification from my hon. Friend on those two small matters.
My queries in no way detract from my support for this welcome measure. It is a short Bill and, as we have discovered, it is a non-controversial measure, but it represents a worthwhile improvement to previous legislation and it may pave the way for further developments in the police central services. It may thus contribute to the development of a more efficient and effective service, which we all wish to see.

Mr. Douglas Hogg: I am grateful for the general support that hon. Members have given to the Bill. I will seek to respond to the specific questions raised. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) asked whether the Bill applies to ports police, of whom there are a small number of forces. Neither the Bill nor the Police Act 1964 apply to ports police. Ports police are set up under private legislation and the Minister responsible for them is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport.
The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) raised a number of points, including the matter of business interests. It is true that a member of the forces may not carry out any business in addition to police duties. There is no specific parallel for officers on central service, but as far as we are aware, none of them has ever done so. Such conduct would be strongly discouraged. We have the sanction of returning such an officer to his own force where, of course the ordinary principles would immediately apply.
The hon. Member for Huddersfield also raised related questions about disciplinary procedures, including whether a police officer could evade a disciplinary charge by being transferred to central service. Although there is probably no barrier in law to such a step, there are substantial practical barriers. An officer would not be appointed to the central service in such circumstances and if such a transfer happened through inadvertence, the officer would be returned promptly to the force from which he came.
My hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Shersby) raised several questions. Before answering, I want to say how pleased we are about his appointment as parliamentary adviser to the Police Federation and I am certain that the Police Federation will benefit enormously from the advice that he is able to give it. He is correct in saying that, under the Bill, officers are not members of their own force save to the extent that is preserved in the Bill. There are specific points that need to be considered on pay, allowances and conditions. The pay and conditions of service of police officers generally are, as my hon. Friend stated correctly, negotiated in the police negotiating board. Those arrangements do not apply to police officers on central service, whose conditions of service are determined by the Home Office. To that extent, his analysis of the position is correct.
My hon. Friend's analysis of the Police Negotiating Board Act 1980 is also correct. Section 1(1)(b) of that Act provides for the staff side of the Police Negotiating Board to represent the interests of members of the police forces and police regulations apply only to members of police forces. Section 43(1) of the 1964 Act makes it clear that an

officer on central service is not a member of a police force during his period of secondment, so police regulations do not apply to him and his conditions of service are not a matter for negotiation in the police negotiating board. That is the position at present. and nothing in the Bill disturbs that. If my hon. Friend tables amendments, they will be considered, but I do not want to give any undertaking about the Government's response should he decide to do so.
I must say to the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) that I am grateful for his support for the Bill. He raised two related questions, one on assaults and the other on the more general question of retrospection. He was right, as I have made plain, to say that the Bill will be retrospective in its effect. The reason is that there have been cases in which officers engaged on central service have acted in the public interest as if they possessed the powers and privileges of members of a police force by, for example, wearing uniform and effecting arrests. It could be said in law that they had acted unlawfully and that, by effecting an arrest, either they had committed the tort of unlawful arrest—unless they had the powers of a citizen in the specific circumstances—or that they had conceivably committed an assault. Those are nice points of law. To cover them, and to prevent some of my colleagues from earning money that they do not deserve in litigation on such matters, the Bill is retrospective.
Central service officers may also have benefited from insurance schemes and provident funds arranged by the police staff associations. One could raise a query about the lawfulness of those benefits. That would be a misfortune, and it is another justification for the Bill being retrospective. The hon. Gentleman also raised the question of assaults on central service officers. We have no knowledge of any such assault, but clearly such an assault is possible and it is right, as a matter of principle, that we should deal with it.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler) raised the question of Northern Ireland. Neither the Bill nor the Police Act 1964 and the Police (Scotland) Act 1967 apply to Northern Ireland. It follows that Royal Ulster Constabulary officers who are at Bramshill as instructors will not be covered by the Bill. It may be possible to contemplate changes and we shall have to consider the scope of the Bill. If my hon. Friend wants the matter to be considered, we will consider it, but at this stage I cannot give any undertaking or commitment about the Government's response.
My hon. Friend the Member for Westminster, North also asked a specific question about what would happen if an officer serving on central service were subject to a complaint arising from the use or misuse of his police powers. The answer is that he would be forthwith returned to the force from which he had come and the ordinary complaints and disciplinary procedures of that force would then follow.
I hope that I have responded to all the questions asked of me. I am grateful to the House for the support that has been given to the Bill and I commend it to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

Intra-community Frontiers (Control)

The Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Douglas Hurd): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 10412/88 relating to the abolition of controls of persons at intra-community frontiers; and endorses the Government's view that in considering the relaxation of frontier controls within the European Community the Government must keep in place necessary measures to control terrorism, drug trafficking and other crime, and immigration from non-community countries.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Paul Dean): I must announce to the House that Mr. Speaker has not selected the amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) and his hon. Friends.

Mr. Hurd: The debate gives the House an opportunity to take stock of our position on the relaxation of frontier controls in Europe.
I should like to make one point at the outset. We believe that frontier checks will continue to be a useful, indeed an indispensable, part of the protection for our citizens against the evils of terrorism, drug trafficking and organised crime, and also against illegal immigration. The documents before us show divergence from the European Commission on this principle. We hold strongly to the validity of the general declaration annexed to the Single European Act, which stated:
Nothing in the provisions of the Act shall affect the right of Member States to take such measures as they consider necessary for the purpose of combating terrorism, crime and the traffic in drugs.
That does not mean that our stance is unreasoning or that we are smugly satisfied with present arrangements. On the contrary, I believe that we are at the start of a period of steadily intensifying co-operation within the Community in police work and in many legal matters. For many years the meetings of the Trevi group of Ministers of the Interior and Justice were relatively few and routine. Now we meet often, for example in Madrid next week, and our programme of work has become formidable.
We in the United Kingdom are among the leaders in encouraging these forward moves, because I believe that they can add to the safety of our citizens. I shall give one or two examples. The more closely we work against the drug trafficker, the better aligned our laws are on extradition, the more effectively we can provide for the confiscation of the assets of convicted criminals in each other's countries and the more clearly we understand each other's policies on immigration and asylum, the more effective we shall be in protecting our own peoples. I hope that we shall spend the next two or three years before the end of 1992 not in jousts between lawyers or in loud rhetorical wrangles over the principle of frontiers, but in solid practical work together in strengthening that protection. This is a new dimension of Home Office work and it is becoming one of the most important.
I should like to make another important preliminary point. The debate and the documents are concerned only with frontier controls as they affect the movement of people but the Single European Act goes much wider. The House will have other opportunities to discuss, for example, the proposals made by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer for reducing frontier formalities on the movement of goods.
The Government welcome the production of a Commission report which pulls together a number of issues related to frontiers and the free movement of Community nationals. We also welcome the recognition given in the report, which has been in evidence in our recent dealings with the Commission, that practical problems require practical solutions. This has been the keystone of the Government's approach. This was the way we tackled the Single European Act and it is the way we are now approaching negotiations with our European partners on frontiers following the Single European Act.
Daily in my mind must be the constant battle that the police and Customs services of Europe are fighting against the evils I have mentioned—terrorism, organised crime and the traffic in drugs. The Commission's report misunderstands the value of these important frontier checks. Indeed, it says:
anyone with intimate knowledge of these matters knows that the present frontier controls are ineffective".
I do not accept that. Indeed, common sense tells us that that is not the case. The functions and effectiveness of border controls vary a good deal from country to country, depending largely on matters of geography. It is obviously more difficult to maintain a full system of control at land borders than it is at natural boundaries. We find that ourselves in Northern Ireland. But it is strange logic to say that, because land frontiers are harder to check, there should be no checks at sea and air frontiers, where checks are fairer and more effective.
The contribution that such checks make to the fight against terrorism and serious crime cannot be assessed precisely, though it is clearly significant. The deterrent effect, for example, is bound to be impossible to measure, but we know that terrorists and criminals recognise the controls as a point where they are vulnerable. The intelligence gathered from observation or questions at frontiers can prove vital in piecing together a picture of a terrorist's or criminal's movements or plans. The frontier checks we operate provide a ready opportunity to arrest and charge suspected offenders and to seize illegal goods.
However, the frontier check is not the only weapon against terrorism and serious crime. We must aim at defence in depth, by which I mean defence forward of our own frontiers—in other countries, within the borders of our partners—defence within our own frontiers—in our own towns and cities—and, where necessary and reasonable, defence at our frontiers.
Increasing co-operation with our European partners is an important part of our policy. We entirely agree with the emphasis that the Commission's report places on collaboration to prevent and combat international crime and terrorism. However, we should not believe that improving the way in which European law enforcement agencies work together can be a full substitute for border controls. This work is worth while in its own right, and we shall certainly press ahead with it.
In the Europan Community this work is carried out, as I have mentioned, within the Trevi framework. We are active, too, within individual states. In January I signed an arrangement with my opposite number in Italy to provide formally for police co-operation—particularly against terrorism, drug trafficking and serious crime. We are talking to the French about a similar agreement, which I hope to sign later this summer. Of course, all that is on top of the more informal help that our police forces give each other day by day.
We shall have to pay increasing attention to the prevention of drug misuse and to the enforcement of our laws against that in the coming months. In that respect, the value of frontier controls is again beyond doubt. Customs seized some 90 per cent. or more by weight of the heroin, cocaine and cannabis seized in the United Kingdom in 1987. It is clear that there is a significant trade in drugs within the Community. Last year about half the weight of cannabis and one third of the cocaine seized by Customs came from or through other EC countries.
Of course, we are not the only country to seize drugs at internal frontiers. It is interesting that, in 1987, French Customs made 36 per cent. by weight of their cannabis seizures at the Spanish border and 38 per cent. of their heroin seizures at the borders with their Schengen partners. So it is quite clear that strengthening the external frontier of the Community, although desirable in itself, would not by itself provide an adequate defence against drug trafficking. It would be ridiculous to argue that checks could not be made in the United Kingdom where it was easiest and most effective to do so, for example at our national frontiers. It would be ridiculous to argue that it is fine to catch a drug trafficker in Europe before he gets here; it is fine to catch him once he is in our city and towns; but the one thing we are not allowed to do is to catch him where it might be easiest to do so—at our seaports and airports.
Where there is precise intelligence, one can choose where the pounce on the drug traffickers should be made. It must be understood that a great number of these seizures are made at the frontier either cold—without precise intelligence—or as a result of profiling. That means that the seizures depend on officers being at the frontier to observe, select, question and examine. These checks should not be onerous or unreasonable, and I do not think that they are. They are not routine checks on every passenger. They are made because an officer's suspicions have been aroused by something he has seen or, sometimes, they are the product of random checks.
I believe that there is an increasing coming together of views on this point. There was some rather excited press comment a few days ago alleging that Sir Leon Brittan disagreed with the Government about the value of these border checks. In fact, what Sir Leon said was consistent with the Government's view. He said:
The control of drug trafficking involves, amongst many other things, the ability to conduct checks wherever that may be necessary. This might be at the Community's external frontiers, at the present internal frontiers or anywhere else.
That was an important statement. His audience of British police officers acting against drug trafficking were reassured by what he said. He made it plain that nobody wants to deprive the forces of law and order of the right to check for drugs anywhere. When commenting on the changes needed at internal frontiers, he said that there would always be the possibility of a spot check here as anywhere else in the United Kingdom.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Whether we agree or disagree with what Sir Leon Brittan or anyone else has said, will the Minister at some stage be saying whether these proposed directives on firearms, drugs, visas and extradition ought to be considered under the majority vote procedure or under unanimity? Could he also say clearly, so that the people of Britain will know, whether the

proviso stuck on the annex of the Single European Act means that, even if unsatisfactory directives are passed, we can ignore them because of that annex to the Act?

Mr. Hurd: I would rather not give a blanket reply, since my hon. Friend mentioned a number of directives and they may fall under different articles of the Single European Act. My hon. Friend the Minister of State, who is to reply, will be able to deal with both the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor).
Another matter that I know interests my hon. Friend is immigration. As I have said, there is a growing convergence of view on the question of frontier checks to protect citizens against particular kinds of crime. I believe that the problem of immigration is somewhat more difficult to solve. One important benefit of the Single European Act is, of course, the freedom of movement rights that it gave to citizens of the European Community. These rights reflect the high and growing common interest between all European partners. The right to freedom of movement for our own nationals to and fro in accordance with the provisions of the treaty is such a shared interest. Our partners give that right to our citizens and we give freedom of movement, for example, to the German business man or the Danish holidaymaker wishing to come to Britain.
However, nothing in the Single European Act conferred rights of free movement on non-EC citizens. That is our clear view, but others in the European Community hold a different legal view of the impact of the Single European Act on this problem. I believe that we need to set these legal divergences to one side, as I do not think they help with the practical problem. I do not think they will be easily or quickly resolved. We need practical solutions to the practical problems. We certainly would not quarrel with member states that have long land frontiers if they wish to operate their checks on non-EC nationals in their cities or workplaces. Equally, we do not expect to be criticised if we operate our checks on non-EC nationals at the water's edge. As we are an island, that is the sensible and practical place for us to do so.

Mr. John Wheeler: My right hon. Friend touches on a most important point. Does he agree that, for the suppression of illegal drugs and to control illegal immigration, it is essential to maintain our existing arrangements? Elsewhere in Europe, the countries and police systems of the Economic Community often have available procedural devices—particularly identity card checks and controls over who stays in hotels—not available to the United Kingdom. Were we to change or weaken the arrangements a t our airports or seaports, we would not have these other devices at our disposal.

Mr. Hurd: I agree with my hon. Friend. A country such as France, with an immense land frontier with hundreds of crossing points, some of them small roads—as applies between the North of Ireland and the Republic—has a real problem. Like everybody else, the French want to be protected against massive illegal immigration. The French Government might quite rationally decide that it is not sensible to put too much reliance on border checks but that it is better to have internal means of control. In a private Member's Bill debate, the House has discussed a compulsory identity card system and made its view clear.


Thus, I do not think that that path is open to us. A voluntary system is slightly different, but would not solve the problem.
That is an illustration not just of differences of history, but of differences of geography that our partners in the Community as a whole need to take into account. For example, the Dutch, with their important seaports and airports, are conscious of this point. We are certainly not alone in stressing the importance of geography in these matters.
There is a difference between the legal views of this country and others in the European Community. However, that does not mean that we have to rest exactly as we are now. We have already made a change, by introducing a new immigration channel at ports and airports, fusing the British and EC channels. Hon. Members who have been through Heathrow and Gatwick in recent weeks will know that.
What we want to aim at—this is in line with what my hon. Friend was arguing—is that all EC nationals should enter this country with the minimum of immigration checks. There should not be a lengthy questioning procedure on entry to the United Kingdom for citizens of our Community partners or our own citizens. They all now have clear rights under the Single European Act. Citizens of our Community partners should be able to enter the country with the same ease as our citizens. There should simply be the normal requirement that one produces one's passport to show that one is who one says one is. In this case, a person would be shown to be an EC national. I believe that the new streamlined channel is a practical indication of our commitment to the spirit of the Single European Act.

Mr. Max Madden: Non-EC nationals who are settled here and in many cases have lived here for a long time are invariably required to obtain re-entry visas when they have travelled overseas. Will the Home Secretary give a clear assurance that, under any new arrangements, these people will not face more onerous procedures? Will he ensure that they have easier access to return to their homes and families in this country than at present?

Mr. Hurd: That position will remain entirely unchanged. There is nothing in the Single European Act or in anything that we are contemplating that would in any way make travel more difficult for the people the hon. Member has mentioned.
The Government's reaction to the report is, as I hope our reply to it makes clear, straightforward. We have a positive commitment to freer travel for Community citizens within the Community. We also have a positive commitment and a need to maintain the checks that are necessary and reasonable to protect our people against terrorism and other serious crime and to maintain the immigration control that we believe is necessary for good relations within our cities.
That is the message which I hope commends itself to the House and which we should try to carry forward in the network of discussions in groups within the Community over the next two or three years.

Mr. Alistair Darling: I welcome the fact that the Secretary of State has been willing to explain some of the matters that have been discussed in the Trevi group over the past few months and years. However, several matters have been discussed in the Trevi group and other groups within Europe, but the Home Secretary has nut touched upon them. I hope that the Minister will answer some of our questions.
The document has quite far-reaching implications. Like many other EEC documents, it is not quite what it seems. The document will affect the rights of people to move in and to enter Europe. More importantly, it contemplates control of regulations and of policy passing to Ministers in Europe, and day-to-day decisions affecting the movement of people passing to officials hundreds, if not thousands of miles, away at outposts throughout Europe. Yet again, decision-making is moving from this country to the EEC. Ministers have it in mind to create a ring fence around Europe after 1992. They wish to create "fortress Europe". In the documents, they talk about a people's Europe, but, apparently, some people's rights will be more equal than others.
I will make a distinction between the control of crime, terrorism, drugs and so on and the movement of tourists, visitors, students and those who wish to settle in Europe. I agree that frontiers have an important role to play in the fight against crime, but it must be accepted that frontiers are not the complete answer. The Secretary of State will know that many people who are stopped at our frontiers have been followed or been under surveillance for, perhaps, many months beforehand, and the frontier is a convenient point at which to arrest somebody who is suspected of having committed an offence. Although the right hon. Gentleman said by way of introduction that the Chancellor may have something more to say about Customs control, Customs and frontier control go hand in hand in detecting the movement of those who will commit criminal offences.
More important than that, drug traffickers tend not to declare their purpose or occupation when they go through immigration control. Sometimes, the importance of frontiers can be over-estimated. However, it is not part of the Opposition's argument that this country should seek to remove its frontier control.
EEC nationals also have been guilty of crimes in the past. Under the proposals, they will be allowed to move more or less with impunity. In general, the proposals do not encourage me to believe that they will do anything greatly to assist the fight against international crime.
I now refer to the proposals as they affect the movement of people. Several problems are posed by the document. We must consider the effect of the ring fence around Europe. If anybody going to any European port of entry—for example, Athens, Amsterdam or wherever—is refused entry, they are refused not just for that country but for the whole of the European Community. Whether one is a tourist, visitor, asylum seeker, it does not matter. If an individual is refused entry in Athens, he is refused entry not just to Greece but everywhere within the EEC. That is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. The standards in each country are different, attitudes are different, and the tests and rules are different and, in many cases, quite subjective.
One can envisage a situation in which someone might arrive at a port of entry at the wrong time, at the wrong


place, and meet the wrong officer, fall foul of that officer, and be refused entry, whereas, if he had arrived a few hours earlier and met a different officer, he might have been admitted. Some of the rules and regulations are quite arbitrary and open to different interpretations.
There is concern that, once refused entry, there is no immediate appeal. What appeal system is contemplated in the event that somebody is refused? There must be a clearly defined statement of what rules will prevail in Europe. It must be clear that the onus of proof is on the challenger. It should not be for somebody seeking to come into Europe to prove his case. There must be an appeal system which works and is seen to work. One of the difficulties in this country is that, often, individuals are told that, if they wish to appeal, they should go back to the country from which they came and appeal there. That appeal can take months if not years. It is not a proper appeal system in the true sense of the word.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: I apologise for not hearing everything that the Home Secretary said. One of the points which he did not cover was that, as many hon. Members with constituency interests know, we have a complex but necessary system in the United Kingdom. Is it expected that it will be harmonised with the rest of the EEC? If so, will the Commission and the Council, and not the House, make the rules?

Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend makes a good point. I was going to refer to it slightly later. The Home Secretary did not refer to what harmonisation is proposed. As the matter has been raised, I hope that the Minister will tell us which rules are to be followed. Are they to be those of the United Kingdom or of West Germany, for example? Their rules on asylum seekers are rather different. If we are saying that responsibility for admission to this country can pass to an immigration officer in other European countries, we should be sure that the rules are satisfactory. By no means do I suggest that the United Kingdom's immigration rules are anything like satisfactory. If we are to operate European rules, it must be made clear what those rules are, and they must be rules with which the country and Parliament agree and not simply a lowering to the lowest common denominator throughout Europe.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Do I take it that the Labour party accepts that, if someone goes to any part of the European Community—perhaps through Greece, Italy or France—they should have an automatic right of entry into this country? Is that the implicaton? If not, what is the Labour party's view?

Mr. Darling: The hon. Gentleman misunderstands the position. I am not suggesting that that is what the Labour party is advocating. I am saying that that is what the document contemplates. When admitted to the EEC, one will be admitted to every country within it. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman might also appreciate that, in theory, after 1992 every citizen of the EEC could come to this country and live here with impunity. That is completely different from the situation which has prevailed. Opposition Members are saying that the situation which is contemplated in this document will lead to many more problems than will be solved.
Another major matter of concern is the exchange of information between member countries. It is convenient to refer to the discussions that have been taking place for

some time among the Schengen group of countries—that is, France, West Germany and the Benelux countries. They aim to operate a common travel area by 1990. As those countries represent some of the major countries within Europe, it is fair to examine what the Schengen group are proposing. I suspect that the Schengen group is operating a blueprint for what will happen in Europe after 1992. Having regard to which countries they are, it is inconceivable that those countries would set up a system in 1990 only to see it set aside for something completely different two years later.
Schengen is a pilot study. I should be interested to know from the Minister whether this country has observers or participants within the Schengen group of countries. If we examine what Schengen is proposing, we will see what Europe will look like after 1992. It contemplates an exchange of information. From an excerpt from one of the Schengen documents which examine some of the conditions that might prevail after 1992, and the contemplated exchange of information, it is clear that an obligatory declaration in hotels will be necessary. The head of a place of lodgings must ensure that aliens—those who are not EEC nationals—must declare who they are. Those aliens will have to declare their identity to the head of the establishment.
The declaration cards are to be kept and passed to the appropriate authorities. The information is to be exchanged between authorities and presumably, therefore, between countries within the Schengen group. That is going quite a degree further than the residual controls referred to in the Home Secretary's memorandum published with the papers that we are debating.
Already within this country we exchange information about asylum seekers—where they have come from, where they propose to go, and where they were removed to. In a written answer the Minister of State told me recently that we do not systematically provide information. Of course we provide information. It concerns me that a large amount of information is being swapped around Europe and that those whose names are on the lists are not always aware of it.
A short time ago I visited the Harmondsworth detention centre. Having done so, I went to the intelligence unit, which I found very interesting. I found there a computer with over 300,000 names on it. They were the names of people who have had some adverse contact with immigration officials. Sometimes it was nothing more than a person being detained for a short period and then being allowed to go on his way.
That index can be accessed by any immigration officer in this country. Will the Minister of State tell us whether it is intended that immigration officers throughout Europe can access that computer? That would be a drastic extension of what is happening now. What safeguards are there at present? So far as I am aware, the Data Protection Act 1984 does not apply throughout Europe. Even if it did, it is woefully inadequate for this purpose.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: Is my hon. Friend aware that many people are very concerned about the existence of that computer and the number of names on it? Since it is not information about criminal acts, so far as I am aware, but information about the views of immigration officers on people travelling to and from this country, does he agree that it would be reasonable that


that information should be made public and should be made available to the people whose names appear on the list?

Mr. Darling: I did not examine each of the 300,000 names, but I was given the opportunity to see how the system worked. The information seemed to be simply remarks made by officers, entered against the person's name. When I was there, I saw how it worked against one individual. When the immigration officer looked at the information, he saw that all that had happened was that every time that person had come into the country he had been stopped. As I was leaving Heathrow, so was he: apparently there was nothing that warranted his detention. If that is the sort of information that is recorded, I can see no reason why people cannot see it.
There is a serious implication if the information is to be accessed throughout Europe. A tourist coming from Torremolinos might find himself detained in a cell somewhere in Europe because the computer thought that he was a terrorist from Turin. That might happen, because mistakes can be made.
What about the landing card index at Lunar house? Anyone who goes there will find that the indexing system is not on the official tour. All landing cards are being computerised. There must be legislation governing the provision of information. People whose names are on these computers have a right to know what information is being held, by whom and for what purpose. If the information is to be available across Europe, before the Government agree to any proposals the House must be invited to legislate on the matter.

Mr. Madden: I was most interested in what my hon. Friend said about the computer list at Harmondsworth. He will know that the staff at Harmondsworth are employed by Group 4 under a contract that that company has recently won. My hon. Friend will also know that Group 4, like other security companies, is a subscriber to the Economic League. He will know that the Economic League is always successful in obtaining information through companies which subscribe to it. The mass of information held on the computer may well be available to the Economic League for purposes unknown but likely to be sinister. Does my hon. Friend agree that that should be investigated urgently and that there should be effective safeguards to ensure that the information is not passed to third parties, including the Economic League?

Mr. Darling: My hon. Friend raises an important point. The more information that is held on computers and the more that third parties that can get access to it, the greater the scope for abuse. For the sake of accuracy, I should point out that the staff in the intelligence unit are Home Office staff and are not employed by a private company. The Group 4 staff are employed in the detention unit at Harmondsworth.
On the common visa regime, I understand that the proposal is that all countries whose nationals require visas to enter any EEC country will be on one list. The Home Secretary should publish the list at the earliest opportunity. It would be useful to see it. I understand that additions are contemplated.
Visas by their very nature cause injustice. They are discriminatory. We require nationals from six countries to

have visas. It is instructive to know why visas are required. On my useful visit to Heathrow I made inquiries about why, suddenly, queues build up for those from some countries but not from others. More flights come from New York every week than from Dhaka or other countries on the Indian subcontinent, yet more and more nationals from the Indian subcontinent were being stopped and queues were building up. The union for the immigration service put pressure on the Government to introduce visas.
When I asked what criteria applied, I was given an example by one senior officer. He said that he and his wife had gone out for dinner at a Thai restaurant the week before. He had noticed that there were more and more Thai restaurants and he had come to the conclusion that because Thai restaurants tended to have Thai staff, there was a chance that more Thais would seek to enter the country to work rather than to visit. Therefore, immigration officials had started to question people coming from Thailand. That is not the sort of objective criterion that we want for visas. When the list is published, we should see what criteria are to apply.
I understand that Turkey may find itself on the list of visa countries. That would be an interesting development, having regard to the fact that that country is seeking to enter the EEC within the next 10 years or so.
There are additional problems. Portugal wishes to maintain links with its former colonies. I give but one example. I understand that Portugal wishes to ensure that citizens living in Macau, a former colony, should be allowed to enter Portugal. If so, they would be able to enter the whole of the EEC. Yet, just across the water from Macau is Hong Kong, a colony of the United Kingdom. We do not propose to have the same arrangement. As a result, the visa regime will cause difficulties and anomalies. I will be interested to hear the Government's policy on that.
Visas also tend to encourage refusals. In the absence of a proper appeal system they can be discriminatory, which, I suspect, they are intended to be in many cases. When one looks at the entry clearance figures for grants and refusals, one is struck by how haphazard and discriminatory the policy can be. For example, a person from a black African country is 10 times more likely to be refused entry to this country than a person from South Africa. If we compare Australia and Pakistan, we find that the same number of applications are made, yet the refusal rate for Pakistan is far greater than that for Australia.
The visa regime brings me to a major problem with asylum seekers and refugees. As we know, sadly, the phenomenon of refugees is growing. The ring fence will cause problems. I understand that the Schengen group is thinking of fingerprinting applicants for asylum or refugee status. They may be required to carry identity cards. We should give much consideration to that.
Considering again the question of controls, I am concerned about what is proposed. I accept that the Secretary of State is not keen on identity cards and I accept the Government's word that we are not to have an ID card system, at least so far. Very often one Government pronouncement is followed swiftly by another from a higher and greater source. If we believe the report in today's Guardian, it appears that these matters are to be taken away from the control of the Home Secretary and are to be run from No. 10 itself.
Internal controls have serious implications. Frontiers have advantages because they avoid internal controls.


What will happen to the 15 or 20 million EEC nationals who are legally settled here? Will they be subject to being stopped on entry and being asked to declare who they are? If we are saying that they are legally settled here and are free to set up businesses and so on, but that they may be subject to controls when leaving and re-entering the country, that is wholly undesirable. That is something that I would like the Minister to clarify.
It is all very well to say that we will not have compulsory identity cards in this country or, indeed, in Europe, but my fear is that some of our citizens and some people living in this country may be encouraged to have voluntary identity cards. Just like the banker's card, an identity card may not be compulsory, but it might be a good idea to carry it and certainly "not to leave home without it".
The controls envisaged by the Schengen group are quite far-reaching. One proposal suggests that aliens can cross external borders only at agreed points of entry and at fixed opening times, and that unauthorised external border crossing would lead to punishment or to a fine. Clearly Schengen is proposing far more than that to which the Secretary of State alluded. It is therefore important that the Minister should make clear the Government's policy for internal controls.
The document contemplates that decisions will no longer be made in this Parliament, but by Ministers. That concerns me, too, because under the Official Secrets Bill—shortly, I assume, to become the Official Secrets Act 1989—much of what is decided will be out of sight, out of mind and most certainly secret.
It appears that we shall see the creation of an industry of information-swapping, with no real supervision. It will create a ring-fence regime that will simply be a nursery for random decision-making, because many of the people making the decisions know that they will not be subject to review.
I shall refer to the document of the immigration service union, which it prepared last year in support of its pay claim, because it is indicative of the way in which random decisions are made. I hope that the Minister will pay special attention to this, because I made passing reference to it at the last Question Time and he was rather dismissive of my remarks. In support of wanting more money, the immigration service union said:
For example, in Dhaka, one of the biggest immigration service-supported overseas posts, settlement cases are decided roughly on the basis of one issue, one deferral and one refusal for every three interviews conducted.
A practice whereby the first person who applies gets in, the next one does not and the third one is deferred does not appear to be an especially objective way of going about business. It does not inspire confidence. However, it does not surprise me to learn that, shortly after that, people were urging that Members of Parliament should have the right to intervene on behalf of their constituents whose friends and relatives were being further curtailed.
We need to state clearly the rights of movement, to know what rules will be established and to have a clear review system. We do not want to give a free hand to people who will discriminate and make arbitrary decisions without challenge. We are at risk—I put it no higher than that—of creating a bureaucracy that would be worthy of the Tsarist regime in its last days before the revolution. It is certainly not the people's Europe that is contemplated in the introduction to the document.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Darling: No, I shall not give way because this is a short debate.
We believe that the free movement of people should mean that people are free to move unless there is good reason to curtail, prevent or temporarily stop them. The onus must be on those who want to make that stop to make their case. Without clearly stated rules, without review, accountability and supervision, the proposals would bring limited benefit and many problems. They would, without doubt, create injustices. It is a matter that is sometimes out of public sight, but I hope that the Minister will deal with some of those problems in his reply and not simply confine himself to general statements.
We know from the working of our immigration rules and our own regime that great difficulties are caused and great injustices done. I do not want to see those magnified and manifested throughout Europe. That would be undesirable and would be one of the worst examples of what can go wrong when one creates a European-wide bureaucracy that has no effective control, because ministerial or civil service supervision is absolutely no substitute for proper supervision by Parliament.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: It has been interesting to hear the two Front Bench speeches. However, I was astonished to hear at the end of what was obviously a well-informed speech, the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) complain of the possibility of a Tsarist bureaucracy which offered people no control of ministerial decisions. Instead, Ministers would sit around a table making decision that would affect the freedom and lives of us all. He said that was one of the greatest dangers facing us. He is, of course, right in what he said, but, if that is the case, why on earth did only a handful of Labour Members vote against the Single European Act from which that all stemmed? It was an inevitable consequence of the Single European Act that there would be majority voting on measures that applied to every citizen in this country and throughout Europe. Therefore, while that is a problem, we should realise that it is not one that has stemmed simply from the Government.

Mr. Spearing: The Tory Government put it through.

Mr. Taylor: Only a handful of Labour Members were there at that time. Of course I accept that it was put forward by the Government, but if there had been more than a handful opposing it, the result may have been different.

Mr. Spearing: The hon. Gentleman may be right, but, of course, the Single European Act of which he speaks, if my memory is correct, had its Second Reading in April 1986, but its Committee stage of the whole House and remaining stages in June or July. My recollection is that on most of those occasions very many more than a handful of Opposition Members voted against it. I hope that the lion. Gentleman will check what he has said.

Mr. Taylor: I have checked it many times. I can say that the hon. Gentleman was there fighting for parliamentary freedom, as he always does honourably. He was there for


every vote, including an all-night vote on a Thursday through to a Friday. I just wish that more had been there to fight against something that is a big problem.
Just as interesting was the splendid speech of the Home Secretary, because we heard from him of the new change in the Government's attitude to Europe and to Europe measures. He used most unusual words about this communication. He talked about a divergence with Europe, he talked about misunderstandings by Europe and he pointed out that he could not accept some of the proposals put forward. There is no doubt that, over recent weeks, we have seen a change of heart by the Government—especially since the Prime Minister has made her concern clear about directives, the extent of directives and the extent to which those directives are unnecessarily bringing in harmonisation and the undermining of our liberty. However, what I believe everyone in the House and outside is entitled to know is exactly what we can do about the proposals in that communication.
When I first read the proposals, I thought that, unlike most of them, about which we can do nothing—once the Council decides something by a majority, it applies to Britain whether we like it or not—on this horrific programme, which would severely affect our national security, we could stop anything happening. That is because, as the Home Secretary rightly said, a general declaration is stuck at the end of the Single European Act:
Nothing in these provisions shall affect the right of Member States to take such measures as they consider necessary for the purpose of controlling immigration from third countries, and to combat terrorism, crime, the traffic in drugs and illicit trading in works of art and antiques.
My understanding was that, because we put in that proviso, there was nothing that the Council of Ministers could do that would necessarily apply here if we thought that it was interfering with our national interests. On the other hand, what worried me was that it was far from clear from the Home Secretary's comments whether the annexe to the final Act is a matter that has the full force of law for us and for the Community. I hope that the Minister will make the position abundantly clear: is it or is it not a fact that, irrespective of what the Council of Ministers does, we can stick to that general declaration and basically ignore what is decided by the Council of Ministers?
I appreciate that this is a constantly changing situation. Although I know that the Home Secretary will give a sincere assurance on this point, because he is certainly one of the most honourable of our Ministers, we must accept that circumstances change. I can remember a Labour Treasury Minister giving an equally sincere assurance concerning the sixth directive. He said that, once the sixth directive had been approved, none of Britain's zero rates could ever be affected by any of the institutions of the Community. We know that that has been overturned at least twice recently, because of the expanding power and decision making of the European institution. We must know what was intended when we passed the legislation. Do the Government believe that they have the right to reject anything decided by the Council of Ministers?
We need to know whether the proposals on firearms control, drugs, visas and extradition ar subject to majority voting or unanimity. It is terribly important to find out. If unanimity is desired, we can call a halt if we consider that the proposals are nuts or are dangerous to our security. If

majority voting is required, it means that we can do nothing about the proposals unless a lot of other member states agree with us. We are in a difficult position as the great majority of Community members are desperately anxious to push on with anything that they consider will lead to more European union and co-operation. Britain, of course, is becoming increasingly worried about the implications of such proposals. When the Minister winds up I hope that he will be able to tell us whether the proposals, individually or collectively, are subject to unanimity or majority voting.
The firearms proposals are serious. The House passed important new laws to control the use and the carrying of firearms and we have now introduced tough penalties. We need to know whether it is possible for the EEC to undermine those penalties by introducing harmonised proposals. Apart from the measures before us now, we know that there is a directive before the EEC currently on the mutual recognition of firearm certificates. Basically, that means that, if anyone wanders into this country as a visitor or for any other purpose, he can bring any weapon he likes with him so long as he has a certificate from his country. Therefore, it is okay for someone to wander down Oxford street with a Kalashnikov. Will the decision on that proposal be subject to majority voting or will it be subject to a unanimous decision?
The drug problem is even more serious. The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) spoke of central European countries where it is as easy to move within Europe as it is to travel between London and Manchester. Given that the harmonised proposals will affect such countries, imagine the potential for the drugs industry. I hope that the Minister will read the careful statement given by Mr. Giovanni Falcone, who is one of the brave leaders of the Sicilian magistrates. He is extremely concerned that the Single European Act and the proposals we are now discussing will lead to an extension of the Mafia's activities. We know that that organisation specialises in drugs and controls much of that industry.
It would be appalling if we had a common standard for visas, as that would be for no good purpose. I hope that the Minister will be able to give us some advice about what is said about extradition. The document before us is a communication from Lord Cockfield, who was our previous chap in Brussels. He said that one of the proposals would be a Community directive on extradition and crime. On page 28 of the communiqué, he referred to convention proposals that had been agreed by most Community countries.
The convention on extradition was ratified by Denmark. Germany, Greece, Spain, France, Ireland. Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands. It was not, of course, ratified by the United Kingdom. The first protocol was approved by almost everyone, but not the United Kingdom. The same was true of the second protocol.
The convention and the two protocols contain some terrifying proposals. If extradition is requested, the country concerned does not need to agree to it if it believes a political issue is involved. We know what that means to some countries. The proposals also affect capital punishment, as countries may reserve the right not to send someone back to another Community member state unless it has the assurance that capital punishment does not apply or, if it exists, will not be carried out. Obviously that would undermine any prospect of the House of Commons, if it so desired in the future, reintroducing capital punishment.


Our law on capital punishment would be extremely strange if it applied to our countrymen only and not to those who had gone to other Community countries.
The argument about capital punishment may seem strange, but the Minister must know what is happening to our Sunday trading laws, because we are awaiting a decision from the European Court. I note that the Minister is smiling, which is rather surprising, but he will have seen the long comprehensive answers I have had from Ministers about that matter. Those answers have made it abundantly clear that, if people break the Sunday trading laws, it is now impossible in many areas to get an injunction to stop them.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Tim Renton): I agree that Sunday trading is an extremely serious subject. I was only smiling at the ingenuity of my hon. Friend who has managed to introduce that difficult subject into a short debate on EEC controls on the movement of people.

Mr. Taylor: This debate is short not because of lack of time, but because the Government slipped through a clever little motion on Friday to say that we could have only an hour and a half on this subject.
I am sorry that the Minister believes that I have been ingenious by discussing Sunday trading. Does he appreciate that people in Britain are concerned when they find that the laws they have passed are undermined or could be undermined by Euro-decisions?
We have also had proposals from the Belgian presidency about the way in which extradition is to be applied, which is rather strange, given how that country behaved about Father Ryan. The proposals under discussion today would undermine our freedom to control crime, drugs and immigration. We have a special problem regarding Macau. We have made a decision, rightly or wrongly, not to allow people to come here from Hong Kong, except in the most extraordinary circumstances. The Minister is aware, however, that anyone from an overseas territory held by an EEC state is entitled to come here. Macau, which is just around the corner from Hong Kong, is covered by that agreement. That arrangement will become even more relevant once the proposals go through.
It is encouraging that the Government are becoming concerned about the volume of European legislation. They are concerned that the institutions of the Commission and the Community are extending their powers and that more and more laws and Community decisions are being applied to this country whether we like it or not. The Minister must be well aware of some of the recent decisions reached by the European Court and the Commission, which will affect every person here. I hope that does not make him smile.
I know that we have a limited amount of time to debate the proposals, but, given their frightening nature, I hope that the Government will think carefully about what we can do about them. If the Minister sought to delay the discussion and implementation of the proposals, that would only hold things up for a while. Although we might jump up and down and make strong speeches about Euro-bureaucracy, we would be unable to stop the process because of the Single European Act.
Because there is such a great desire on the part of Germany, France and Italy especially, to press ahead to form a unified state, we should start talking seriously

about the possibility of a two-tier Europe. That would be good for us and good for those who want to get on and establish that unified state. We should also be concerned that, where these issues are concerned, democracy is disappearing. On matters of immigration, firearms and the rest of it, the House of Commons is basically irrelevant since Ministers will sit around a table and decide what they consider to be appropriate.
This is a desperately serious situation. Even if the Minister disagrees with everything I have said and even if he wants to ignore my speech, will he please, please answer the two basic questions I asked the Home Secretary? Number one, does the annexe to the Single European Act mean we can do what we think is in our national interest, irrespective of EEC decisions? We know that such protection does not apply elsewhere, but I thought that it did in this regard. Is that true or not? Do we have the backing of law or not?
Secondly, will all these desperately important issues, including immigration control and firearms control, he decided by majority vote or by unanimity? Sadly, this is the only brief occasion we have to discuss these important matters. Parliament has ceased effectively to be the body which passes the majority of our laws. We now work under a different arrangement, under the Council of Ministers and the Commission. This is our one opportunity to ask questions. I hope that we shall receive clear answers.

Mr. Robert Maclennan: It is always more agreeable listening to the Home Secretary speaking as a diplomat than when he is speaking as the atavistic exponent of his party's views on the maintenance of law and order. He was in the first vein when introducing this debate and made a relatively uncontroversial speech, as was appropriate in considering this subject.
Important though it is to make progress towards opening up the internal market, and to do so at the speed to which we are committed by our implementation of the Single Act, we must do so in a practical way, taking account of the differences which exist in respect of the handling of the major issues of crime, drugs and immigration, particularly from third countries, that prevail in the member countries of the Community.
The Home Secretary was less than frank when he spoke of the objective of this amendment to Community law as the progressive relaxation of frontiers. Indeed, it is impossible to read article 13 of the Single European Act as such an objective, for it speaks of the creation of an internal market without internal frontiers. There was little in the Home Secretary's speech that recognised the hope that that position will be achieved by 1992.
Nor was there more than a passing formal acknowledgement in the right hon. Gentleman's remarks of the desirability for this country, and in particular for our commerce and industry, of opening up these frontiers by that year, since the existing frontier barriers between the member countries of the European Community constitute a serious and major addition to the costs of exporting and place a considerable commercial burden on our enterprise which we would wish to see removed.
The possibility, of which the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) spoke—of a two-tier Europe—would in almost no area be more unattractive than in this. The idea that the Schengen group should progress to


the removal of intra-Community controls while we retain the barriers to trade which now exist, would put this country at a disadvantage which would accentuate our problems, by virtue of our geography, in trading on the periphery of continental Europe. It is right that we should take the opportunity of this debate to emphasise that that is the prime purpose of seeking to implement section 13 of the Single European Act in the manner that has been agreed in principle by this House.
Naturally, the attention of the debate so far has focused on the exceptional declaration which accompanies the Single European Act:
Nothing in these provisions shall affect the right of Member States to take such measures as they consider necessary for the purpose of controlling immigration from third countries, and to combat terrorism, crime, the traffic in drugs and illicit trading in works of art and antiques.
The hon. Member for Southend, East was right to draw attention to the importance of that provision, and I do not believe that any British Government would have been ready to agree the Single European Act without such a declaration, for it is clearly necessary, in recognition of the historic differences in the manner of controlling immigration within the European Community, that provisions we made for removing frontiers should recognise that there are problems, some of which were mentioned by the Chairman of the Select Committee on Home Affairs, the hon. Member for Westminster, North (Mr. Wheeler), in an intervention.
I appreciate the Home Secretary's generally pragmatic approach to dealing with these problems and to his recognition that more will be achieved by co-operation than by striking attitudes. I hope that the negotiations will be conducted in that way rather than in the posture of Ministers wrapping flags round themselves and insulating ourselves from the process of the European Community.
The Home Secretary said that there had been something of a flap about the remarks made by Sir Leon Brittan. I agree that Sir Leon's comments—I understand that they were made in this country to a police audience—pointed the way forward. It was helpful of Sir Leon to say that, under the Commission's proposals, it would still be possible for the authorities to carry out spot checks at internal borders and that the abolition of green or red channels would not prevent that. That was a welcome interpretation of the Commission's views.
There are in the Government's memorandum occasions when it almost seems as though they are trying to pick quarrels with the Commission for the sake of it and are seeking to find differences where none exist. I cannot think that the Commission will take exception to the view that the Government express in paragraph 10 of the memorandum, where they say that the retention of minimum checks for the purpose of distinguishing British citizens or European Community nationals from non-Community nationals
is compatible with the Treaty, and with the objectives adopted by member states collectively".
It is not correct to say that the Government in that matter are necessarily at odds with the European Commission.
The whole country is conscious that it is sensible to recognise that the police must be assisted in the fight against crime, particularly against terrorism and the growing menace of the importation of drugs into Britain, and that they should have power to stop and investigate at

all convenient places, being places most likely to reveal breaches of the law or to apprehend malefactors, and the natural borders of our islands are such places.
What we are seeking to achieve by implementing the opening of our country's frontiers is in no way incompatible with allowing the police to continue to use those facilities. It is equally clear that it is not in the nation's interest for long queues of lorries and cars that impede internal traffic within the European Community to disappear in continental Europe while, at our frontiers, they remain as they are or become even longer. The Home Secretary is right to believe that that practical problem is surmountable. He drew attention to certain changes made in recent weeks to the channelling at our airports of those holding European passports. I am sure that such a pragmatic approach will commend itself to all hon. Members.

Mr. Max Madden: I wish to register both appreciation and concern. My appreciation is for the fact that on this occasion the Home Secretary did not explicitly or implicitly attempt to slur the Labour party as in any way supporting terrorism or people who threaten the nation's security, peddle drugs or are otherwise involved in criminal activities. I also appreciate the fact that he did not accuse the Labour party of supporting illegal immigration.
However, my concern rests on the tone of the comments in the Government's explanatory memorandum about how they regard non-EC nationals, including non-EC nationals who have lived in this country for a long time. The document states:
In the Government's view, checks on EC nationals (including British citizens) can and should be reduced to the absolute minimum required in order to distinguish them with confidence from non-Community nationals;
That is a very neat summary of the Government's view that runs through all their immigration policies and procedure; it is that all those who are not British citizens, and, in this case, not EC nationals, are inevitably and, almost by definition, to be viewed without confidence. They are always to be suspected of being liars, intending to deceive and to circumvent by any means possible the legal procedures for entering this country.
The Government's explanatory memorandum also states:
In the Government's view, therefore, the way forward is to combine measures to strengthen the external frontier of the Community, and other forms of co-operation between states, with such measures as are required at the national frontier to control the immigration of non-Community nationals into the United Kingdom.
I hope that when the Minister of State replies to this short debate, he will explain what that paragraph means. I am extremely concerned about what the phrase "measures as are required" means. The last paragraph on page 11 of the letter from Lord Cockfield states:
A package of measures (identity checks, curbs on the use of forged travel documents and organised illegal immigrants traffic) is being studied by the Immigration Group.
Following my earlier intervention, the Home Secretary tonight gave a clear assurance that no significant changes will be made in the procedures relating to non-EC nationals, non-British citizens or nationals of third world countries, many of whom have lived in this country for a long time. We were told that they would not have to face any significant or onerous new procedures.
As so often, I must tell the Minister that those people know that the Government regard them without confidence. They understand that the Government suspect them and that the Government, and many of their supporters, regard them as an unwelcome presence in this country. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will be able to reinforce and re-emphasise what the Home Secretary said about there being no new procedures.
The Home Secretary said that there are new channelling arrangements at Heathrow. Is there any possibility of a new channel being introduced for non-British citizens and non-EC nationals under those arrangements? It would be absolutely intolerable if that were the case and it is important that, when he winds up, the Minister gives a clear assurance that there will not be any new arrangements of that sort. Such arrangements would serve only to strengthen the alienation, and lack of trust and confidence felt by many non-British citizens and non-EC nationals who have good reason for wanting to travel through and outside the Common Market. Such people need that reassurance tonight, and I hope that the Minister will be able to give it.

Mr. Jeremy Corbyn: On occasions such as this, I feel as though I am in a county council chamber discussing the possibility of sending a letter to Whitehall asking whether it would be good enough to consider our views. Due to the Single European Act and the way that the European Community operates, we have less and less power over what happens to this country's nationals or the movements of people within the EC.
In the Government's memorandum, reported by Lord Cockfield in October 1987, during the British presidency of the European Commission, they initiated the idea that there should be some harmonisation of immigration and refugee law throughout the European member states.
My hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) made an excellent speech, in which he demonstrated the double standards that exist in the European Community. There is talk of free movement of EC nationals throughout the Community but no talk of free movement of peoples who are not EC passport holders, but who are legal, long-term residents of one of the member states.
It seems extraordinary that, when a pensioners' group in north London wishes to arrange a day trip to Calais, its members have to look around to see how many of them are Caribbean and cannot therefore go on the trip because they cannot obtain visas from the French embassy here in time. The same applies to Indian people and others. That is a serious and nasty experience for those people, because they do not have the same freedom of movement as others.
The British Government are hardly in a position to lecture others on this subject when we think back to the views that the Government have expressed and the legislation passed through this House, which has largely removed the rights of hon. Members to intervene on immigration matters. The Government passed the Immigration (Carriers' Liability) Act 1987 and have failed to face up to the many legitimate criticisms made of their attitude to refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Page 6 of the Government's response to the EC document says:

The Government accepts the need for closer co-operation between member states in asylum matters and, in particular, for an agreement on the determination of which member state is responsible for considering asylum requests.
I view that statement with an ominous feeling. I see behind it a levelling down of the treatment of asylum seekers to the lowest common denominator in Europe. The Government's attitude in the case of Viraj Mendis, when they refused to consider the offer of a third country, make me suspicious about that statement.
The Home Secretary's final comment on the EC document said:
The conclusion of Immigration Ministers at Munich concerning airports, to which the report refers, was conditional upon agreement to abolish controls on non-EC nationals. As already indicated in this Memorandum, no such agreement has been reached.
I suspect that the Government do not plan to reach agreement. I and people in my constituency and others fear that there will be two standards throughout the Community in 1992.
I want to refer briefly to "The Migrant and Refugee. Manifesto" published at a press conference in the House this morning. That deals with real rights for 16 million people across Europe who are largely denied the same sort of rights that exist for EC nationals. They do not have rights of movement or, in most cases, the right to vote, despite the fact that they pay taxes, and often they do not have a right to employment. 'We are creating a two-tier economy in Europe, with the semi-legal economy of migrant workers in low-paid jobs in sweatshop industries being treated as second-class citizens throughout Europe.
The manifesto demands 10 points to be applied throughout Europe. They are the right to stay; the right to family reunion; free movement within the EC; full social and political rights; full legal rights; no to racism, fascism and police brutality; no to repatriation and deportations; no to economic racism; the right to organise independently, and an amnesty to all unauthorised workers. That would go a long way towards removing the fear that exists in many migrant communities in Britain and other EC member states. I hope that when the Minister replies to this brief debate he will refer to the general points in the manifesto, which I understand is being sent to him.

Mr. Maclennan: Does the hon. Gentleman accept the harmonisation of the law in the areas that would be necessary to give effect to those rights?

Mr. Corbyn: Yes, that is a fair point. My point was that the harmonisation of the law is taking place for EC nationals, but the same rights are being deliberately excluded from non-EC nationals resident in EC member states, partly as a result of the Government's actions. It is for those reasons that I hope that the Minister will give serious consideration to the legitimate points that have been raised on behalf of a large number of migrant and refugee organisations.

The Minister of State, Home Office (Mr. Tim Renton): I am delighted to have the opportunity to reply to this short but interesting debate, particularly since I spent this morning at a place where in a few years' time we shall be looking carefully to see just how frontier controls and checks are working post-1992. I spent the morning at the Eurotunnel shuttle terminal at Cheriton and at the exhibition centre there. With me were senior immigration


officials whose job it is to see how, at the shuttle terminal at Cheriton, we can streamline frontier checks while keeping what we consider to be the essential element of those checks when the Channel tunnel comes into action in June 1993. When it opens, the Eurotunnel, the largest building programme in Europe this century, will be a major contributor to, and beneficiary from, the single market that we are discussing.
I followed the speech made by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central (Mr. Darling) with interest, but he was in a muddle, although a well-meaning muddle, about the document. On the one hand he argued that the Commission's proposals were not effective enough. I remind him that in his open* remarks my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State stressed strongly that practical co-operation was often more effective than treaties. That practical co-operation between our police force and European police forces is developing all the time in such matters as the seizure of drug traffickers' assets, extradition and mutual legal assistance.
On the other hand, the hon. Gentleman was arguing that the document would be too effective. He talked about fortress Europe which, if it came into being, would have too stringent an effect upon the movement of people. I remind the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor), whose remarks I followed with the closest interest, that paragraph 8 of the Home Office statement on the Community document states clearly the areas in which we differ from the Commission. For example, we believe that
the Communication and the report misunderstand and seriously under-estimate the contribution which frontier checks make to essential defences against terrorism, drug smuggling and other crime, does not accept that either the progress so far achieved, or the measures under contemplation, would justify the complete abolition of frontier checks within the Community; and differs"—
this may be the most important point that I shall address to my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East—
from the Commission on the implications of the Single European Act, particularly as regards the treatment of third country nationals.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central implied that someone who had been refused entry at Athens might also be refused entry at Heathrow for that reason alone. That may be the case if the Commission's view prevails, but our firm view is that we shall continue to operate United Kingdom immigration controls at our ports and airports under British rules.
One point on which I must contradict the hon. Gentleman is that Group 4 does not have access to the computer services systems of the immigration service.

Mr. Darling: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Mr. Renton: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me I shall not give way as I have very little time. [Interruption.] With the greatest respect, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) was not in the Chamber so he cannot know what the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central said.
Group 4 does not have access to computer service systems of the immigration service. Information on the immigration service headquarters computer is registered under the Data Protection Act 1984. It is exempted from disclosure under exemption nine.
The working group on immigration is considering a common list of persons who would be refused a visa by EC countries. The United Kingdom would, of course, require primary legislation in order to refuse a visa to someone simply at the request of another member state. It is clear from the present legal position that we cannot do that.
The Schengen approach, to which the hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central referred, envisages the abolition of all frontier controls and is probably more relevant between countries with large land frontiers with each other than in the case of an island such as Britain. We are not proceeding down the Schengen route. We are interested in what is being done. We understand that it intends to rely on internal controls, but we as an island do not need to do that, and, by tradition, we prefer not to.
The hon. Member for Edinburgh, Central asked about those who legally settled here as did the hon. Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Madden). There is no reason why, either in our or the Commission's view of 1992, a person settled in the United Kingdom should have any additional difficulty in returning here. I remind the hon. Member for Bradford, West, who has a particular expertise on immigration subjects, that we are talking today about controls and checks at frontiers, not about rights of residence. There is no question of 1992 affecting the right of a person now settled here to stay here.
There is nothing sinister about the exchange of basic information on asylum seekers, such as the number arriving, their nationalities, decisions taken, or what we know about organised illegal immigration. We remain completely responsible for the determination of asylum applications in the United Kingdom. The ad hoc group that covers that area is interested in trends, not in individuals.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East, spoke on a subject about which he feels deeply and which he has raised with me before. Some of the topics dealt with in the Commission's report relate to goods—for example, licit drugs, works of art and antiques. Proposals in those matters would normally come under the qualified majority proposals. But in the basic area of the freedom of movements of people and their personal luggage our clear view is that the proposals must be made on the basis of unanimity. We have made that clear to the Commission in respect of its proposed directive on firearms, about which my hon. Friend particularly asked. We shall continue to press our view that that should be based on article 235, which relates to frontier controls and carries the power of veto, rather than on article 100A, which requires only a qualified majority.
I stress to the House that our approach to these matters is very much that of making the most progress possible towards 1992 and lifting the burden of frontier checks and formalities to the greatest possible extent for European Community citizens while retaining immigration checks for residents of third countries and the ability to prevent the movement of illicit drugs and terrorist weapons. This is practical progress in keeping with the importance we attach to the completion of the Community's internal market. I believe that this progress is of great value, not just in treaties and rhetoric but in expanding the markets for business and services for the Community market of 320 million people.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,


That this House takes note of European Community Document No. 10412/88 relating to the abolition of controls of persons at intra-community frontiers; and endorses the Government's view that in considering the relaxation of frontier controls within the European Community the Government must keep in place necessary measures to control terrorism, drug trafficking and other crime, and immigration from non-community countries.

Public Procurement

The Paymaster General (Mr. Peter Brooke): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of European community Documents Nos. 7496/88 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Treasury on 24th October 1988 and 5909/89 relating to public works contracts and 10497/88 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Treasury on 2nd May 1989 relating to compliance with Community rules on procedures for the award of public supply and public works contracts; endorses the view that revisions to Directive 71/305/EEC are necessary to improve public purchasing throughout the Community; welcomes the Government's endeavour to secure a statisfactory outcome in discussions on the proposal on public works contracts in the Council of Ministers; and supports the Government's intention to press for a means of improving compliance with Community rules on procedures for the award of public supply and public works contracts which places appropriate responsibility on Member States.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Miss Betty Boothroyd): I have to announce that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken) and other hon. Members.

Mr. Brooke: The debate is about two of the proposals that the Commission has made with the purpose of opening up public procurement.
We debated the first of the Commission's proposals, which was intended to improve the supplies directives, in Standing Committee in December 1986. Later that month the Commission submitted the first version of its proposal to amend the works directive; a year later, it submitted a measure intended to secure compliance with that directive and with the supplies directives; and it introduced proposals to cover the so-called excluded sectors last autumn. We shall be debating the proposals on the excluded sectors on another occasion, but it has been agreed that it is appropriate to deal today with both the proposal to amend the works directive and that to improve compliance.
Although the proposal on works was submitted in December 1986, the Commission made significant changes to it about a year ago. The Select Committee on European Legislation considered that the amended proposal raised issues of legal and political importance and recommended it for debate. Unfortunately it was not possible to arrange a debate before the Council of Ministers adopted a common position. However, I did try to keep the Chairman of the Committee informed of developments in Brussels, and I am glad now to have the benefit of the views of the House before the directive comes to the Council for adoption on the basis of the re-examined proposals that the Commission has now submitted.
In the case of compliance, there have so far been only initial discussions in Brussels. It has already become clear, however, that the Council is likely to reach a common position that differs in a number of important ways from the Commission's proposals. I believe that what is emerging may prove more acceptable to the House than the Commission's proposal, but I have to say that the new texts will require very careful examination.
Before going further, I should like to say a word about the procurement directives generally. They were originally adopted long before the present programme to complete the single market. The works directive was adopted before


we joined the Community. The existing directives were put in place because the Community wanted to provide a framework that helped ensure that the obligation under the treaty not to discriminate on grounds of nationality was fulfilled. The same purpose was behind the Commission's inclusion of public procurement in its White Paper on the internal market in 1985, and Heads of Government have since given support to the objective of opening up public procurement more fully.
Changes to the supplies directives have been in force since last January. Changes to the works directive are clearly in prospect—and we can expect measures to be adopted which will make it easier to enforce compliance. The Government have welcomed those initiatives because we believe that the administrative burdens that the directives may impose are outweighed by the contribution they can make to the achievement of a single market.
I accept that others may hold different views on the balance of advantage. A large number of people have helped us by commenting on the proposals and many have disagreed with parts of them. I greatly value the willing co-operation and assistance that they have given. I suggest to them that they changes that we are discussing to the works directive improve the chances of contractors in this country winning business in other member states of the Community and that it is to our advantage to ensure that adequate procedures are available to make sure that the rules are obeyed throughout the Community.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: What procedures?

Mr. Brooke: I repeat—to ensure that adequate procedures are available to make sure that the rules are obeyed throughout the Community. I appreciate that my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) has put his name to the amendment and I am sure that he will speak to it in due course. I promise that I will respond to him at that stage.
I propose to highlight the main changes that it is proposed should be made to the works directive to make it more effective, and to draw attention to one or two points that we think will cause difficulty. I will then comment on the changes to the Commission's proposal to improve compliance that are now being discussed in Brussels.
The proposal to amend the works directive includes a number of changes which are similar to those adopted last year in relation to the supplies directive and which we were able to support. More time is to be allowed for contractors to respond to advertisements and to invitations to tender. Contracting authorities are required to publish notices of contracts they have awarded and to give explanations to eliminate candidates or tenderers on request. They are also required to publish the essential characteristics of works contracts above the threshold as soon as decisions on planning are taken. Other measures to improve transparency and to assist the monitoring of compliance include the retention of records and the provision of statistics.
Contrary to some suggestions, the proposal does not limit the use of the so-called restricted procedure. That is the procedure used by most of our contracting authorities and involves the selection of tenderers from those firms that express an interest. This reduces the burden on

contracting authorities and also on contractors, since the cost of submitting tenders can be very high. Contracting authorities will need, of course, to be able to show that they make their selection of tenderers without discriminating against candidates from other member states.
There are exclusions for works declared secret, those that are subject to national security considerations and those that need to be procured under other international rules. The proposal replaces the previous limited exemptions from the open and restricted procedures by negotiated procedures involving one or more contractors, with a call for competition in some cases. This should reduce the incidence of single tendering and provide greater opportunities for contractors without imposing undue burdens on contracting authorities. Similarly, new provisions on the use of standards will increase the ability of contractors to compete throughout the Community while taking in from the supplies directive derogations that were negotiated there to protect value for money.
The directive is also amended to catch any form of contract for civil engineering or building works let by, to begin with, Government Departments and local authorities, but it is not intended to apply to contracts to be let by management contractors. The field of application is extended to encompass bodies which meet criteria for defining "bodies governed by public law" and to include rules on the award of concession contracts and the award of works contracts to third parties by concessionaires. In addition, authorities covered by the directive that fund more than 50 per cent. of the cost of a contract for civil engineering works or certain building works must make compliance with the directive a condition of the funding. The threshold, however, is to be raised to 5 million ecu—about £3·3 million at today's rates. The fivefold increase means a considerable lightening of administrative burdens on contracting authorities.
There are a number of improvements intended to benefit small firms. For example, the publication of contract award notices should help them to target main contractors. There is a separate provision allowing contracting authorities to ask tenderers to indicate any share of the contract that they intend to sub-contract to third parties. To make it clear that contractual freedom is not affected, the Council agreed to say in its common position that information given to the contracting authority is without prejudice to the question of where responsibility lies for the contract. The Commission, accepting a suggested amendment from the European Parliament, now wishes the provision to say:
Without prejudice to the question of final responsibility.
This may be acceptable although we would prefer to see an explicit reference to contractual responsibility.
An area where the existing directive and the proposal were unclear was whether contracting authorities could require tenderers to be quality assured. It is important that they should be able to require that, since the Government mean to increase the use they make of quality assurance. The Council agreed that technical specifications should be defined in the directive to include requirements for quality assurance. It helped to be able to say that a standard on quality assurance had been adopted at European level that national standards bodies would be required to implement. It was a British standard, BS5750, that was adopted, and I pay tribute to those responsible for its development and for its acceptance internationally.
The Council also agreed to amend the provision in the Commission's proposal relating to abnormally low tenders. That required contracting authorities to ask for written explanations in such cases, but it was putting an unnecessary burden on contracting authorities in cases where they were prepared to accept the offer. The changes now made will limit the obligation to ask for explanations, and take them into account, to cases where the contracting authorities consider rejecting such an offer.
Another area in which improvements have been made is the acceptance of variants. The proposal now says simply that where the criterion for the award of the contract is that of the most economically advantageous tender, contracting authorities may take account of variants that meet their minimum specifications, which they must state in the contract documents together with any specific requirements for their presentation. A proposal to limit the rejection of variants now says only that rejection is not allowed on the sole ground that a variant has been drawn up by reference to European standards, or the like, instead of those to which the contracting authority had referred.
Two provisions that pose difficulties for us result from amendments that the European Parliament proposed to the common position and which the Commission has taken into its re-examined proposal. The first would allow contracting authorities to impose conditions for participation aimed at assisting the fight against long-term unemployment or for the employment of young people. But that could be only in the context of programmes agreed by the Commission.
The background is that last September, in deciding on a case brought before it by a court in the Netherlands, the European Court of Justice pronounced on the position under the existing directive. It found that the directive allowed member states to make their own rules on public procurement provided they were compatible with Community rules and that, subject to national rules, contracting authorities were free under the directive to impose conditions relating to the use of the long-term unemployed—provided there was not discrimination, direct or indirect, against firms from other member states. The nature of the condition would have to be mentioned in the tender notice published in the official journal.
What is now proposed would limit the freedom of member states to forbid conditions of the kind that it mentions. Conversely, the provision might prevent the use by contracting authorities of other conditions for participating in a contract procedure. The proposal also changes the balance of responsibilities by letting the Commission rather than national courts decide in the first instance whether a condition is discriminatory. Finally, the meaning of the expressions "operational programmes" and "competent authorities" is unclear. For these reasons, that provision is not one that we could support.
The second provision that causes us difficulty is a requirement on contracting authorities to state where information can be obtained on the employment conditions applicable where the work is to be carried out, and to require tenderers to state that those conditions have been taken into account in their offers. That provision involves just the kind of administrative burden we want to avoid. Clearly it is important that contractors should make their offers with the necessary knowledge of the environment in which they would be working. But that is best done by the firms themselves making inquiries or

having inquiries made for them. Making it a requirement for contracting authorities to state the source or sources of the relevant information assumes knowledge that they may not have, particularly of works to be carried out elsewhere. If they make errors of omission, it could lead to confusion over liability. The solution that the Council found in its common position was to say that contracting authorities may indicate the sources of the relevant information. If the provision is mandatory, there may need to be safeguards for contracting authorities.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Can my right hon. Friend say what will happen procedurally'? He says that the European Parliament proposed two changes to the common position that Britain does not like. What will happen next? Will there be a majority vote, or must there be unanimity? If there is not unanimity, will we have to scrap those proposals? My right hon. Friend is right in the thick of it, and it would help the House to understand those matters if he will explain what will happen to those two unacceptable amendments.

Mr. Brooke: I shall answer my hon. Friend's question, but I want to make absolutely certain that my reply is correct. I shall respond to his point later.
Before moving on from the works directive, it may be helpful to refer to the position on negotiations with those who submit tenders. The Council agreed with the Commission to publish a statement on the extent to which negotiations can take place where there is competition based on open or restricted procedures. Negotiations will be ruled out where they are likely to distort competition, but it will be recognised that discussions can properly take place for the purpose of clarifying or supplementing the contents of tenders or the requirements of contracting authorities. We regard it as important to ensure that contracting authorities can hold such discussions in their pursuit of value for money.
The proposal for the directive to improve compliance does not relate only to the works directive, but applies to the supplies directives as well. Getting better compliance has long been the Commission's objective, and member states have shared it. Most, of course, are fairly certain that there are not undue problems in their own countries. They say that what they need is to be sure that others are following the rules. The United Kingdom can justifiably claim that it has a good record in observing the rules. That is not the point. For suppliers and contractors to have the necessary confidence to go out and get the business, they need to be satisfied that their bids will be properly and fairly considered.
That is what the proposal on compliance is intended to ensure. At its heart is a set of requirements that member states must ensure are fulfilled in each country. They come down to saying that procedures shall exist to enable firms who may feel aggrieved to obtain reviews through judicial or other procedures. Putting it that way enables the Commission to cope with different practices in the various member states. But it is worth pointing out that the Commission is showing itself insistent on ensuring that, whatever the system, there is a completely independent element within it.
The Treasury describe in the latest supplementary explanatory memorandum how discussions in the Council machinery are pointing towards significant changes in the proposal. I regret that it was not possible to provide the


memorandum until a day or so ago. However, it shows the very latest position in the Council, and I shall say more in a moment about how we see the position on one or two points.
Rather than take up time by examining the way that the proposal developed at every stage, let me describe some key points in the version now being discussed. The latest form of the proposal still provides for damages to be available to persons harmed by an infringement, but leaves the decision on how damages are to be calculated in the hands of member states. We believe that that is right. We do not believe that, as the Commission originally proposed, it should be possible to claim compensation in respect of forgone profits or lost opportunities.
The proposal in the form that the Council is now discussing no longer gives the Commission a power to intervene as of right in court proceedings, as the Commission originally intended. Instead it provides that member states may require that the leave of the court is obtained before the Commission presents its observations. Courts in the United Kingdom can, if they wish, already invite the Commission to do that. Normally, however, they would expect to refer a question of European law to the European Court of Justice. We need to consider whether a provision pointing them in another direction is justified.
The proposal in its latest form does not give the Commission the power to suspend award procedures. Instead it includes a procedure whereby the Commission may notify a member state if it considers there is to be a clear and manifest infringement. It is recognised that the member state, in replying, may refer to the fact that review proceedings are under way. I know that some interests—such as the Confederation of British Industry—would prefer the main feature of the enforcement mechanism to be a system of audit. That idea is attractive, and I believe that it may have an important place in securing more open procurement in the excluded sectors, where directives on procurement have still to be adopted. However, I do not believe that we can hope to convince the Commission or other member states that audit can take the place of the kind of rules that we are now discussing in relation to Government Departments and local authorities. For one thing, we cannot, at least at this stage, expect to obtain the more flexible régime for the award of contracts that we hope to get for the excluded sectors, and which provides the main rationale for adopting the audit approach.
The CBI itself wants to establish what it calls a central complaints procedure that may include more than letting firms seek notification by the Commission in the way I have described. I shall be interested in how the CBI develops its thinking, but I note the difficulties that may arise in preserving the proper bounds of responsibility of the Commission and of member states. The CBI says that actions in the courts should always take place after contracts are awarded. I ought to point out that the courts in this country can already step in before that point.
I know that hon. Members may have a number of other concerns with both the compliance proposal and that on works. I should like to say a word or two more about the Government's view. The Government share to the full the wish to avoid unnecessary bureaucracy. I believe that the changes made to the Commission's original proposal to

amend the directive on works go a long way towards getting rid of the rigidity that makes life difficult for purchasers. Many of the points that are raised apply, in fact, more to supplies than to works. Then there are those who would prefer the directive to impose obligations of a social kind on contracting authorities. The Government believe that it is not appropriate for a procurement directive to do this, and that view is shared by a number of other members states.
Hon. Members may ask whether the works directive, even when it is amended, is likely in practice to increase competition. So far, the number of contracts awarded to non-national firms has been small. The number will grow, but we should not expect figures like this to tell the whole story. Increasingly, contractors are looking at other ways of breaking into new markets, such as joint ventures and the acquisition of existing businesses. Such moves will be made easier by the provisions in the new directive that are designed to give greater openness to the process of awarding contracts.
Some of those who have commented to us on the Commission's proposal on compliance have been concerned about the risk of expensive litigation. The point is a fair one, though, of course, it arises because of the wish, which we share, to give suppliers an opportunity to take up complaints. The courts will be able, within the terms of the Commission's proposals, to deal with frivolous actions. There may be a case for making this explicit, while avoiding unnecessary harmonisation of national provisions. In relation to the excluded sectors, the Commission has itself made it clear that it recognises the extent to which commercial enterprises may be vulnerable to litigation, and will take that into acount in making its separate proposals on the enforcement of any rules on procurement that may be adopted for those sectors.
As for the present proposals on compliance and works, the Government believe that they include features that it is practicable to include in new directives soon and that it is worthwhile to try to do so. Subject to seeking the changes I have mentioned in the proposal for works, the Government propose to join other member states in agreeing to adopt the directive. As for compliance, we believe that there are important benefits to be obtained, and we therefore propose to work with the Commission and other member states to produce a system that puts responsibility on member states, where it belongs.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: I beg to move, as an amendment to the motion, at the end to add:
'and would welcome the provision of a speedy and effective system of arbitration in cases where contractors consider that they are not being afforded fair and equal rights to tender and to secure public purchasing contracts.'.
I am afraid that my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken), who is one of the most conscientious Members of the House, was expecting the motion to be debated later in the evening. I am therefore moving the amendment on his behalf. I apologise for the fact that my hon. Friend is not here, but I remind the House that he is one of the most conscientious Members in his attendance at Euro-debates.
I hope that the Government will accept this brief and non-controversial amendment. We are all of the view—whether one is critical or uncritical of the EEC—that anything that can bring about free trade in Europe should


be supported 100 per cent. If the 1992 programme will achieve that aim, we shall all be very happy, particularly if it does not bring protectionism with it.
What worries me, my hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South and others, is that there have been many assurances of this nature in the past. However, for all kinds of reasons—certainly not through the Government's fault —nothing has happened. Hon. Members will recall that after the Prime Minister returned from Europe she told us that she had received a firm assurance that the EEC would impose spending controls. Unfortunately, they did not work because the Commission was still able to use crazy accountancy devices. The Court of Auditors report which has just been published shows that, while budget expenditure was expected to increase by 3 per cent., it actually increased by 25 per cent. We expected good things to happen. Sadly, they did not happen—not because of the Government but because we did not check everything out.
We have also encountered problems with 1992 itself. The insurance industry, in which I am involved, expected exciting things to happen in connection with free trade, but sadly the directive illustrates that free competition will be very limited. We have received assurances in the past about fraud. I know that the Minister is taking a personal interest in the activities of the Mafia. He will have read the recent statement by the leader of the magistrates in Sicily that he fears that the directive might lead to an extension of the nasty activities of the Mafia. The Mafia used to be in charge of crime, prostitution and the drugs industry in Sicily, but we understand that it is now engaging in other activities because money from the common agricultural policy is much easier to come by. Whether or not that is true, fraud is a problem.
We are worried that all these excellent measures will add to the costs of contracting authorities, councils and public bodies. They will have to provide a great deal of information and go through all kinds of procedures which may not work. That is IA by it would help enormously if the Government felt able to provide an easy arbitration procedure. If a British contractor felt that he was being discriminated against unreasonably, or that he was being treated shamefully by a public authority, he would then be able to do something about it.
The Minister probably knows about the example that I intend to mention. If he does not, he should speak to his right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary or to the Secretary of State for Transport. Southend wanted to be able to fly a plane to Ostend and then to run a bus from Ostend to Frankfurt. We were told that we could do so; European Community legislation on the subject was clear; we could go ahead right away. The Minister knows what, sadly, happened. We had to appeal to the Foreign Secretary who went to see Mr. Genscher, the Foreign Affairs Minister in Germany. They talked about it, but nothing happened. Then the Foreign Secretary approached the splendid Minister of State at the Foreign Office. She tried terribly hard. She took infraction proceedings—which I do not understand, but other hon. Members will. Unfortunately, nothing happened.
With some of my friends on Southend council I then flew to Bonn. There, together with the splendid British ambassador, we went to see someone who, we were told, was the head of the German transport department. We had a frosty meeting with him. We found that he was not the head of the department; he said that he was in charge

of the Berlin airlift. When I told him that the Berlin airlift ended over 30 years ago he told me that there were residual problems.
The point is that, although the law was clear, we battled on for four years and got nowhere. After the four years were up and when it seemed that something was going to be done, we found, sadly, that the poor firm had gone bust.
I know that the Minister is battling hard for Britain, as he always does. He is fighting for jobs and for the good of Britain in the Community. However, it will not help Britain if lots of extra bureaucratic controls are imposed. Something must be done about it.
I am worried about the proposal that all these matters should be referred to the Commission. The Minister must be aware of what happens when matters are referred to the Commission. There are all kinds of discussions, meetings and procedures. If my right hon. Friend is in any doubt about that, he should talk to the boss of Amstrad, Mr. Alan Sugar. He will tell my right hon. Friend what he thinks about the Commission.
All we want is easy access to easy arbitration. We do not need a great court system, but we should have a small number of highly qualified arbiters. They should not have the right to change a contract, as that is extremely difficult, but they should have the right to impose penalties and perhaps to award compensation. It is crucial that there should be an easy method of access to prevent organisations such as the German Lander, which have behaved rather strangely in the past, and to stop some of the sillier local authorities—perhaps some of the British local authorities—from showing discrimination where there should be freedom. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will appreciate that the amendment does not bind the Government in any way. 1t does not tell them to stand on their head and to throw out the regulations.
We all agree that free trade and the extension of freedom to purchase would be good, but there is not much point in putting extra burdens on industry unless we discover that the system works. Therefore, I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment and start a new process of good will and co-operation in the House of Commons so that we can all fight together for British industry and British jobs.

Mr. Stuart Holland: I begin by saying that the Opposition welcome the amendment and we hope that the Government will accept it.

Mr. Quentin Davies: The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) uses the first person plural to describe the Labour party. Will he tell us why only one Labour Member is present for a debate on a very important issue?

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. That is not relevant. As this is a timed debate, we should make some progress.

Mr. Holland: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Stamford and Spalding (Mr. Davies) cannot count. Two Labour Members are present on a day when the Conservative ranks appear rather thin, and we do not have to stretch our imagination to discover why.
The amendment welcomes the provision of a speedy and effective system of arbitration when contractors consider that they are not being afforded fair and equal rights. I should have thought that the Government would


accept the amendment. Who could be against speedy and effective systems—the Government have told us that they do not favour bureaucracy—and who could be against fair and equal rights? The amendment is limited in that it is not highly specific in the manner in which the hon. Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) demanded that legislation concerning the Community should be. We shall not push the matter to a vote, but we certainly support the amendment and we urge the Government to accept it.
We are very glad to know, or to see in the press, that the House may soon adopt new methods for Community legislation. It would have been interesting had the Minister been able to refer to the reports in the press and to give us some indication of the way in which such legislation will be considered. Perhaps he will do that when he replies to the debate. If it is the case that the House will receive earlier information on proposals to the Council of Ministers, it will be possible, through discussion and debate, as is classic in the House, to influence the legislation through amendments. Instead of getting legislation which is already six months out of date, the House might have the chance to consider it in advance.
Yet again, we are having a short debate on the legislation, although its provisions are wide-ranging. There are half a dozen articles and various sub-clauses covering more than two and a half pages of text, and that is on tendering alone. They do not concern the other provisions which have been proposed by amendments in the European Parliament and which have aroused considerable concern elsewhere.
The proposals include the issue of abnormally low tenders and how to cope with them, and the advertising thresholds for small and medium-sized firms. They seek to address the abuse of a dominant position in the internal market in tendering by big business. Classically, larger firms can put in lower prices on a contract and squeeze out small and medium-sized firms. The raising of the threshold, which we regard as perfectly reasonable, will make it possible for small and medium-sized firms to get contracts without the bureaucracy which would otherwise be involved in awarding those contracts. That provision also applies to the information on sub-contracts, and we welcome it. In other words, it should be open to small and medium-size firms in practice to bid for sub-contracts on large projects.
However, we are disappointed by the Government's response to some of the proposals by the European Parliament about special provisions on long-term unemployment and the employment of young people. It also is striking that the Minister did not refer to special provisions for contracts in assisted regions of the Community. It is perfectly clear why the Government are opposed to that. They say that they are concerned about changing the balance of priorities in the Community towards the Commission.
In an intervention, the hon. Member for Southend, East asked the Minister about the implications for the Single European Act, for majority voting and for article 100A. The Minister said that he was not prepared to reply to that, but an answer is necessary and it has to be yes or no. Either it is consistent with the Single European Act or it is not.
The Government are causing difficulties, or claim difficulties in other respects, when the contractors must reveal sources of relevant information when the contracts are submittee. Why do the Government have such difficulty with contracts which are designed to reduce long-term unemployment or to assist employment for young people? The Minister's speech, and certain background information contains arguments claiming that the Commission has not published the costs which various procedures would entail.
Perhaps the Paymaster General can answer the following question: what cost implications of awarding such contracts on a regional basis have the Government estimated? What is the cost to the Community of awarding contracts to local firms in a region of high unemployment, whether that is an inner-city area, an industrial region in decline? What costs are involved in doing that? In many cases the costs may be marginal in direct terms, but in indirect and social terms they can contribute to the regeneration of inner-city areas or industrial regions in decline, or stem the further decline of such regions. They can also bring hope through work and training, especially to the young who otherwise increasingly are persuaded that they have no hope of training or of getting a job.
We find it deplorable that the Government cannot support those objectives. Also, the Paymaster General's statement to the House about business and competition were, frankly, amazing. When he talked about competition, I thought that we would get at least a line or two of rhetoric about the thrusting entrepreneurs of the Government's mythology. Not at all. According to the notes I took at the time, the Minister said that there will be an increase in joint ventures and the acquisition of existing business. Is that what the Government have in mind as a result of that provision?
If it is, it means an increase of concentration and centralisation in the construction industry in the Community as a whole. Without provision for giving exceptional treatment to contracts either in the assisted regions or on social grounds, that is precisely the consequence of the measures before us. It has been seen in the past in other industries. In the United Kingdom there has been concentration in the construction industry. It is especially easy for big firms to achieve, as it is characteristic of the construction industry that firms themselves do not own all the equipment they use, but hire it on a sub-contract basis. It will, therefore, be open to the bigger firms in construction to bid for the bigger projects throughout the Community in a manner that will not be possible for small and medium firms whose own construction activities are in particular localities—whether southern Italy, Catalonia, Liverpool, the north-east, or Scotland.
The consequence of the provision is related to a philosophy of 1992 and the internal market that comes across clearly from what the Minister said—that the Government support the market dimension of the proposal, but not the social and regional dimensions although they are crucial to offset the concentration of the construction business into fewer hands in the Community. In that sense, the Government show themselves, regrettably, more concerned for the private interest than the public interest, more concerned for profit than for people and more concerned for big business than small business.
This approach is typical of the Government's general approach in the Community towards the 1992 proposals. The provisions should include the amendments concerning derogation for contracts in regions of high unemployment. They should be supported rather than opposed. Also, in practice, there is a strong case for such public contracts to ensure that equal opportunities are respected by the contracting firm, and that the firms awarded the contract should expect to have regard to the environment and sound environmental practices.
We have heard a great deal from the Government about the environment. Why did the Minister say nothing about that? Many of the schemes on which bids will be made in the Community will have environmental consequences and many of them will be major infrastructural schemes. Where is the provision to ensure that there is concern for protection of the environment in those schemes? Where is there any concern to ensure that contractors on a project such as the Channel tunnel, who may disturb the environment in either an urban or rural area for several years, will have any obligation to those living adjacent to the project whose lives may be disturbed? In those respects, the Government speak with one voice at an environmental conference in London and with another voice when there is a low attendance at a debate in this Chamber on Community legislation.
There is a consistent trend behind the Government's approach. It is consistent with the interview given a few days ago to Le Monde by the Chancellor of the Exchequer who, after all, has responsibility for this legislation, as is made explicit in the background memorandum. The interview concerned the 1992 proposals and the proposals for economic and monetary union in the Community. The Chancellor said that the Government supported the internal market proposals, but rejected the view of the Prime Minister of France that an internal market without a social dimension would he simply a jungle, or a house open to the winds. The Government will increasingly have to address the issues of the social dimension, whether they like it or not. There will be an increasing expectation that they should be concerned with areas of high unemployment, with the social implications of legislation and with matters of the environment.
The issue was put well in an article in today's Financial Times by Joe Rogaly, who writes:
The mistaken belief that Britain has undergone a true revolution … lies behind the Bruges view that European integration can be allowed to go far enough to meet the trading needs of the partners—but certainly never so far that what has been achieved in Britain since 1979 will be overturned by corporatists and social democrats ruling from Brussels after 1992. Like so many other difficult equations of the 1980s, this one is all solved with mirrors. The reality is that Britain has little option but to move, ratchet by ratchet, with the rest of the EC; the bombast, which is based upon a sense of continued ideological superiority, is entirely in the opposite direction.
As can be seen in this legislation, in rejecting the social dimension and preferential programmes for the regions, the Government and the Prime Minister have shown that they are out of date, out of touch and out of line with the rest of the Community.
On a personal note, the Prime Minister said that she had not spent 10 years in Britain rolling back the frontiers of the welfare state to see them now roll forward in Europe. It may be known to the House that I shall be accepting a post in the Community and I shall be working there with others in Europe to help ensure that they do

precisely that. The social, regional and industrial policies that Europe needs can be formulated and mobilised, and widely supported by other Governments in the Community.

Mr. Hugh Dykes: The Opposition spokesman concluded his remarks on a rather interesting and dramatic note. It is interesting to reflect briefly that, only a few years ago, he was a strong anti-Marketeer.

Mr. Holland: Although it may be a footnote of history, 1 must point out that my first employment on leaving university was to be an economic adviser to the then Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, on European Community affairs. I advised him then that the Community was neither a sabre-toothed tiger about to shred the nation state nor a springboard for federalism. I not only advised him to apply to join, but assisted indirectly with some of the negotiations. It would have been better if we had had successful negotiations in the 1960s on better terms than it was later possible to achieve.

Mr. Dykes: That was a long response. Coming back to 1970 and afterwards, when we did broadcasts together in French, the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) was not keen on Europe. It is interesting to see the change in the Labour party's attitude. I hope that that will not be mirrored in my own party in terms of adverse changes of attitude to the European Community. I am sure that it will not be. The Conservative party remains genuinely, fundamentally and profoundly a quintessentially European party. I welcome the conversion of the Labour party's official spokesman and Labour Members and their developing enthusiasm for Europe—even if it is for rather negative reasons. It is part of a general realisation that the Community is here to stay, is a good thing, that membership of it is an outstanding historic development and a good thing for this country—

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Rubbish.

Mr. Dykes: The country is settling down at long last to the facts and realities of Community membership, like other member states, and the country and its official representatives are gradually and with increasing self-confidence getting used to working with foreigners. They are realising—it is a monumental surprise to some —that, like us, foreigners are human beings with needs, hopes, aspirations, desires and requirements, and that they are people we can trust and on whom we can rely in a developing Community.
Many people in the other member states will be saddened if they think that this country is at variance with their views or at odds with them on too many things. However, I believe that the press is exaggerating on that and that that will not happen because even in a House of Commons so overloaded with work and too much legislation, common sense will break through. However, it would be a pity if that manifested itself in a number of limited areas because the other member states welcome the intellectual and practical contributions that this country can make. One always gets that impression when visiting them and talking to their people.
Several agreeable things are happening right now about these directives. I pay a sincere tribute to the way in which my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General has handled


them. As the only member of the Select Committee on European Legislation present in the Chamber, I pay a particular tribute to my right hon. Friend for the way in which, in difficult circumstances and with a short timetable, he kept us informed of the changes at the last stages, including his rather dramatically written letter of 2 May, which was appreciated by members of the Select Committee.
Another agreeable manifestation is that this debate is taking place—good Lord, I don't believe it, no it can't be —at 7 o'clock in the evening. It would be nice if it could last for longer than an hour and a half when we are debating such a complex area.

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Hear, hear.

Mr. Dykes: I hear my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) expressing his agreement on that. Whatever their original view about the Community, its membership, the history thereof and the future, more and more hon. Members want the House of Commons to get to grips with more effective scrutiny. Indeed, there has been press speculation about that.
I am a most enthusiastic European. I am the kind of sensible person who carries ecu travel cheques on the continent. Although they are accepted in only a limited number of outlets at the moment, the future is long term and we should wait to see what happens with those developments. European money would be practical for all member states in due course and that, too, is a long-term development.
I have always been strongly in favour of effective and profound scrutiny. It is not right for the press or hon. Members to be pessimistic about that and to say, "We are swamped and overwhelmed," or "We cannot handle it." With the mechanisms that we employ and augment from now on and depending on the recommendations of the Select Committee on Procedure on the ideas that are to be promoted soon, both through the usual channels and publicly by the Leader of the House—and perhaps by the Labour party and the other Opposition parties also—the House of Commons and the House of Lords, in so far as it is involved, can engage themselves properly, without great difficulty, in those aspects of scrutiny and do the job properly. That will not be done by whingeing and moaning about every single item that emanates from Brussels and saying, "Here is yet another manifestation of bureaucracy," because that is usually a totally inaccurate and emotional comment. Instead we should concentrate on the important things when we are dealing with the legislative instruments that come before us.
I hope that we can get the mechanism right and have it at the appropriate last stage, rather than considering these legislative instruments like the several stages of a Bill in our own domestic legislation and, therefore, dealing with them repetitively. We should go back to the great policy areas of the development of European policy and consider the European Council as the supreme policy body, and not regard its policies simply as issues for the Council of Ministers to vote on, either by majority of unanimity, depending on the Commission's suggestions.
Although the Paymaster General will say that this is not his province—I hope that he has the chance to pay some heed to this issue, although I appreciate that he is making

notes on all sorts of complex points relating to the directives—I stress that, to do what I have suggested, we need our European Supply days. We need all-day debates. We should send more provisions into Committee, if they are minor. We need debates like this, in the afternoon or the early evening, not late at night. We need greater attendance at such debates and I hope that that will come in the future. We should not necessarily give these matters more severe treatment just because they come from Europe than we give our own secondary legislation. It is absurd to think of a deserted House dealing with domestic secondary legislation and saying "That does not matter —it is not important," because, of course, it is important. However, European matters are different and we are still getting used to the substance and the chemistry of them, which is always a complex task.
I would go into these documents in detail if there were more time. Again, it is a pity that an hour and a half is the maximum time for a debate on such complex areas. These provisions are an extremely good example of where the Community is getting it right and where the British Government and, I hope, the British Parliament, are getting it right in terms of our responses to these matters. I agree very much with what my right hon. Friend the Paymaster General said about the documents.
Despite being an enthusiastic European, I hesitate about some of the amendments proposed by the European Parliament. As we know, they are not enforceable by that institution; they are only suggestions which may or may not be incorporated. I am glad that there is now a forcible Commission approach to achieving a single market for public supply contracts, works contracts and equipment contracts. There will be many bumpy moments on that stony, rocky and difficult path. Incidentally, I hope that when my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East, is rightly pleading for British companies to get contracts in Italy or Germany in the future, he will plead hard for a German or an Italian company to get a contract in Britain on the same basis—

Mr. Teddy Taylor: Or an American company.

Mr. Dykes: Yes, and others, wherever they may be, but we are thinking at the moment of the European Community and its component member states.
We need a completely fair-minded and balanced approach to these matters, and not double standards that depend on an emotional nationalism, which is the obvious temptation. I have noticed that some of my hon. Friends, who are gung-ho free-market people in terms of domestic policies, always become massively interventionist if their own constituencies are affected by free market manifestations or by the closing of a business. They then become superb interventionists of the most ferocious blood-tooth kind when defending—[Interruption.] I shall not allow my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East to tempt me, because I would be getting out of order. If my hon. Friend will be patient, I shall come back to him on another occasion. Perhaps I shall even write to him, if that is not something that only Ministers can say. Perhaps Back-Bench Members can say, "I will write to my hon. Friend." That may be the proper way to do it, but I shall have a conversation about this with my hon. Friend in due course.
Sometimes unwittingly, but usually consciously and cynically, people can have double standards. If we are to


accept an open market in public supply contracts, it must be genuinely open. It must be a market in which we accept the rough with the smooth and where foreign companies can come here without our being surprised and disconcerted by the efficiency of their approach. Perhaps in future, contracts will start to be expressed in ecu. Public authorities in different member states could ask for the contracts to be expressed in ecu. Gradually, if ecu prices are posted, both in the manufacturing and contracting sectors and in the retail sector, in hotels, restaurants and shops, perhaps we shall gradually see a development, at the margin, of that European currency, alongside the currencies of all the member states.
Turning to the documents, at long last the Community is on the march. This has been a complex area with immensely complicated legal implications to be worked out by lawyers in all the member states. I agree with the general approach taken by my right hon. Friend and the Government on this matter and that we should keep this issue unbureaucratic, open and flexible so that we can ensure that the provisions are based on genuine commercial criteria from the contracting parties and the sub-contractors.
Obviously, much complicated negotiating remains to be done by representatives of Her Majesty's Government on these matters, especially in respect of the second directive to which my right hon. Friend referred. I wish my right hon. Friend well on that. We are now seeing the growing maturity of the House of Commons, which at long last is beginning to understand that Jacques Delors was misquoted when he referred to his famous 80 per cent. If one re-reads his words, one will find that he said that only the Bundestag and the House of Commons were doing anything like a little bit, or perhaps a bit more than a little bit, of effective, but none the less inevitably circumscribed, scrutiny.
He also said that if the Parliaments of the other member states did not adopt similar mechanisms, the parliamentarians of those member states and the populations represented by them would wake up with a rude shock and a sense of surprise and deception later when they realised that more and more decisions were being made collectively on behalf of the member states by the Council of Ministers, voting increasingly on a majority. What a terrible and frightening thought is a majority voting system, which used to be called by the old-fashioned word "democracy". I do not see why that should not work just as well in Europe as it does on a national scale.

Mr. James Wallace: This is a joyous occasion not only because we are dealing with a European matter at a relatively appropriate time of the evening but also because, whilst there is not unanimity, there is a fair amount of common ground in the Chamber. I am surprised that I find myself in considerable agreement with what the hon. Gentleman the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) said, since his European enthusiasm has been shared over many years by members of my party. He spoke about the parting comments of the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland). He will go to his new employment with the best wishes of all hon. Members.
One of the most surprising aspects is that I found myself having much in common on a European matter with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Southend, East (Mr.

Taylor). He said that, if the creation of a single market improves free trade, it is to be welcomed. We share that view. I also shared his anxiety that, if there are some concealed bumps in what is otherwise meant to be a level playing field, they, too, should be rooted out.
I recall raising in the House almost a year ago, in a debate on shipbuilding, a contract that a local authority in my own constituency was placing for the building of some ferries. It received a very attractive tender from a company in another Community country that was believed to have been subsidised many times over, to a far greater extent than any subsidy allowed to a British company tendering for the same contract. We look forward to companies of different countries being able to tender for public contracts on equal terms.
I also share the concern expressed by the hon. Member for Southend, East on the question of implementation of these proposals. The motion says that the Government intend that the principal responsibility for ensuring compliance will rest with the member states. In this country, we have a good record of complying with directives, although we might argue about their terms before they are ultimately passed. However, I suppose we are concerned about compliance with the directives by other member states. It is probably not profitable to point accusing fingers, but we must be confident that other member states will comply properly.
I realise that we have been presented in this debate with very technical papers, and I apologise to the Paymaster General if I did not follow all that he said. I was not sure that he said much about the attitude of other member states to compliance. I would welcome anything he might say on that in reply.
I hope that in 1992 the single market created will not just be for the benefit of big business. If the single market is to achieve its purpose, small businesses must share in the benefits. The Paymaster General referred to major contracts for smaller businesses being considered. That would allow small businesses to tender for sub-contracts, a move that is welcome. Moreover, the raising of the threshold will allow many small businesses to tender for and win more contracts.
I wonder whether more can be done to bring to the notice of smaller businesses the types of contract being put out for tender in many different parts of the Community. In my own constituency, many small businesses would not be aware of possible opportunities. In these days of information technology, perhaps some central agency could disseminate information about the Community. Very often, a lot of information is fed in, but perhaps we could look at improving the dissemination of information from the centre. If that helped to draw attention to business opportunities, it would be most welcome.
The raising of the minimum level for contracts is also welcome, as it will relieve a burden felt by many local authorities. To tender and advertise on a wide scale imposes an administrative burden, as well as advertising costs. The Minister said that, under the new provisions, companies would have more time to respond to advertisements. In circumstances in which a contract has to be placed very quickly, what are the requirements? If something has to be done the day after tomorrow, one cannot expect advertising on a wide scale. However, when the time scale is 10 days or 20 days, it is a greyer area. In other cases, perhaps as a result of flooding or some other


natural disaster, an immediate response is required by a public authority. In such cases, advertising fully throughout the Community is inappropriate.
I refer, finally, to the delegations proposed by the European Parliament. As I understood them, they were for contracts that had regard to programmes agreed by the Commission in connection with the long-term unemployed and young people. I cannot see anything particularly mandatory in those provisions. However, perhaps the Government could have a second look at the matter.
While it is necessary that the benefits of 1992 be shared by big and small businesses, it is most important that benefits be shared by all areas of the Community. The honeypot triangle of Paris, Frankfurt and London should not receive all the benefits. Many remoter areas also wish to share the benefits that will flow from the free market of 1992. Community programmes are involved. There need not necessarily be any question of discrimination between competing companies of different nationalities. If, for example, the contract related to the number of young people likely to be engaged in a project, I have no doubt that an appropriate tender could be submitted by a French, Italian, or British company. There is nothing inherently discriminatory that would militate against such a situation.

Mr. Dykes: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it would be better to establish those conditions on a non-discriminatory basis in terms of the promulgation of the contract for which the tender was sought by the public agency concerned in whatever country, with the advertisements thereof in the press and elsewhere?

Mr. Wallace: I believe it would be better if those who were competing for the tender were well aware of what was involved. I would be grateful for anything the Paymaster General can say about this matter in reply.
It is gratifying that we are making progress in this area. Some worthwhile changes have been made. I hope that the Paymaster General will respond positively to the reasonable and practical suggestions of the hon. Member for Southend, East. What was suggested would import into the matter a certain degree of independent compliance. Certainly, if the matter is pressed to a vote, I will be disposed to support the amendment.

Mr. Peter Griffiths: It is easy to express the pious hope that there will be free competition and many opportunities for companies in any country in the Community to seek to offer their services elsewhere. It is not particularly difficult to draw up directives or legislation which state those objectives and express the hopes and ideals which are unanimously supported in the House. However, it is particularly difficult to ensure compliance with those objectives when they are expressed.
I will not digress from the subject in hand, but surely it is the experience of Her Majesty's Government that it is difficult to guarantee real competition in tendering for contracts put out by public bodies, even in one country. It is difficult to avoid the feeling that there are elements of discrimination. There are elements of political favouritism. If it is difficult in one country, it will be even more difficult

in Europe. Nevertheless, I welcome what my right hon. Friend said about the approach which the Community is taking and which Her Majesty's Government are supporting. The directives on procurement and compliance are a move in the right direction. No one will object to that.
Every speaker in the debate has referred to 1992 and the single European market. The directives are not specifically related to 1992. Regardless of 1992, they are essential, but they will be more important after that date, because we may expect a growth in the number of large projects which spread across national frontiers. River or tunnel projects, for example, will involve more than one Government, perhaps several municipal authorities, and other statutory bodies in different countries, all of whom will have an interest in one contract.
I appreciated the comments of the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland). He referred to the construction industry. The directives are not specifically related to 1992, nor are they limited to the construction industry. Public works projects of the scale envisaged in the directives will involve a wide range of industries. Therefore, they are of far greater importance than digging holes and laying bricks and mortar.
I fear that political complications will arise. They will not only be that companies based in the United Kingdom may find it difficult to obtain compliance on the mainland of Europe, although that is what we tend to think when we discuss such matters. I agree that the directives apply to mainland companies seeking opportunities in public works contracts in this country. That is to be welcomed. However, it is an important reminder for companies in this country which are worried about their opportunities to obtain overseas contracts that they must compete harder in future because compliance with the directives documents will mean that their overseas competitors will have better opportunities.
There is no doubt that disputes will arise from time to time between companies seeking to tender and authorities putting out contracts for tender. That is why I shall say a word in favour of harmonisation—a word which often raises people's hackles. This is a case in which harmonisation can only do good. The closer the contracts drawn up between countries coincide, the better. My right hon. Friend the Paymaster General said that tendering documents will be drawn up according to the regulations in member countries, as long as they are acceptable under the broad control and rules of the Commission. That still leaves a good deal of room for misunderstanding and variation.
I should like to see standard forms of tender and contract. In response to the hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace), I should like to see standard forms of advertising. It should be recognised that project advertisements should not be geared so that they give different results in different countries. Journals and newspapers do not always have the same readership. The closer we can get to standard forms of tender, contract, and advertising the better.
It will be important to make it clear in advance to small companies that they should look for contracts not only in this country but in Portugal, Greece and places where they might not normally look. Their attention should be drawn to where they will find contracts. The associations to which


many small companies belong have a responsibility to provide a service to their members to tell them where they should look for opportunities.
I commend the amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor). If disputes arise, we will be able to try to deal with them relatively cheaply. We will need a quick system so as not to get bogged down in legal systems which could be complicated because they operate in more than one country. An arbitration system could be the solution to that problem: I hope that the Paymaster General will consider that proposal. If he does not find the amendment acceptable, I hope that he will look for some quick and easy way whereby a relatively small firm can complain quickly and effectively if it considers that its genuine attempt to provide a service at a competitive cost and of the highest quality is rejected on what appear not to be purely economic grounds. I commend the directive and my hon. Friend's excellent amendment.

Mr. Brooke: With the leave of the House, I shall reply to another of our admirable debates. The hon. Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Holland) has announced that he will shortly leave the House, but he has not informed us of precisely when. I hope that there will be many such debates in which he continues to take part before his departure for Fiesole. All hon. Members wish him well there.
The hon. Gentleman and I are former members of Balliol college, Oxford. The departure of any member of that category from the House is a matter of regret for some hon. Members. There was formerly in the college a club called the Hursteron Protaron club, which, once a term, lived its life exactly backwards, and started with a whisky and soda first thing in the morning and ended up with porridge late at night. In this instance, it would be more convenient for the House if I reply to the admirable speeches in their correct order rather than the reverse order.
We will miss the hon. Member for Vauxhall when he eventually leaves us. My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East (Mr. Taylor) and I will regard him in Fiesole as one of our potential informants on developments in Italy within the Community. We look forward to dispatches from those parts.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East referred to procedures. The version of the proposal as it now stands is in the supplementary explanatory memorandum. It shows the latest thinking within the Council working party. It is described in articles 1 and 2. I am replying also to my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North (Mr. Griffiths). Specifically, the review procedures are to be available to suppliers and contractors who claim to be disadvantaged. There will be notification to member states by the Commission if it considers there to be a clear and manifest infringement which could follow complaints from those who felt that they had been disadvantaged. There will be an investigation by the Commission using its own resources.
As to the question of process, the proposal is now to be considered by the Council. It can be amended at any time by the Commission or by the member states acting unanimously. It can be adopted as a whole by qualified majority voting in the Council. We do not yet know which other member states share our concerns about the

proposed articles on conditions for participation and information on working conditions, but other member states have been expressing views as we worked through the matters, and a number of changes that have been made flow from alliances that we have formed with other member states.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East moved an amendment on behalf of cur hon. Friend the Member for Thanet, South (Mr. Aitken). I do not wish to fall back on the traditional escape route of Ministers responding to amendments by referring to the wording of the amendment, but if my hon. Friend examines the wording, he will see that there is a touch of "Alice in Wonderland" in the provision about fair and equal rights to secure public purchasing contracts. It is the case in "Alice in Wonderland" that everyone should have prizes but it is a difficult exercise to achieve in a competitive process.
The amendment suggests arbitration as a form of administrative recourse. It would be premature to decide now whether that would be more appropriate than a system based in the courts. My hon. Friend will know of the deliberations of the House of Lords Select Committee on the matter. The proposal, as it is evolving, would allow a judicial system or an administrative system, or both. Existing remedies might suffice. On the other hand, some form of administrative tribunal or arbitration body might have advantages. That was the issue considered by the House of Lords Select Committee in its admirable report last year. It concluded that in the United Kingdom the tenderer should seek remedy in the courts. We all agree that contractors and suppliers should be provided with a speedy and effective remedy where they are harmed by a breach of the rules. That point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North.
It is essential to the proper operation of the market that companies have equal opportunities to compete for public contracts and that they should have confidence that if they are invited to submit a tender, it will be considered fairly. We will need to consider the means by which such remedies can best be provided. If it proves necessary or desirable to introduce legislation, the House will have an opportunity to debate what we propose. At this stage it would be premature to decide, so I ask my hon. Friend to withdraw his amendment. Having said that, I should be happy to receive representations from my hon. Friends when we get nearer to forming the conclusion on precisely what the remedies should be.
My hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East raised a question about costs. I agree about the importance of avoiding unnecessary bureaucracy, as I said in my speech. The process of negotiation has removed excesses in the original proposal, although I acknowledge that some difficult points remain, such as the requirement to specify the source of information on employment conditions. The basic procedures, such as making a clear decision on the requirements of contracting authorities and going to competition, are fully consistent with the principle of getting value for money. For major projects over £3 million it is not unreasonable to expect public bodies to have to go to competition.
If this is the last contribution of the hon. Member for Vauxhall to these debates, it is admirable that he fulfilled his usual tradition of raising the King Charles's head of large corporations. He drew attention again to small businesses, to which I referred earlier. The Commission's approach to disadvantaged regions is to assist small firms


by other means. The Commission has spoken of a series of proposals such as an active policy on sub-contracting, but such measures would not be appropriate to a procurement directive. I acknowledge the interest of hon. Members in making sure that these opportunities are available to small business.
The hon. Member for Vauxhall rehearsed arguments of a social nature, as I expected him to do. He will know that the representations received by the Government, to which I also referred, were diametrically opposed to those that he rehearsed in his speech. As to his remarks about environmental consequences and the issue of joint ventures and acquisitions, the directive is designed to ensure transparency of fair competition and the ending of discrimination against non-national contractors. It does not and cannot deal with environmental issues.
The way in which the construction industry reacts to the opportunities that implementation of the directive presents is a matter of commerical judgment. In referring to joint ventures and so on, I was simply advising the House on what appears to be happening so far. It must be remembered that we are discussing multi-million pound contracts and that as a result of the increased transparency smaller firms will have better opportunities to operate as sub-contractors.
As this may be the last occasion on which the hon. Member for Vauxhall and I face each other across the Dispatch Box, I will remark, in a sense outside the debate, that I have been struck by the immense investment of the Japanese in research and development in the building and contracting industry. It is likely that we shall see the Japanese impose on that industry internationally what they have done to shipbuilding. I am not sure that it would not be sensible in those circumstances for European consortia to he put together to resist them.
In a characteristic peroration, the hon. Gentleman spoke of the United Kingdom's occasional isolation. On this issue we are not in a state of isolation. We have secured a number of changes already in the negotiations.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. Dykes) made some kind remarks about my relationship with the Scrutiny Committee. He argued for a genuinely open market. I am grateful to him for what he said.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Wallace) raised the question of compliance in other member states. They all accept our objective, but, as he says, it is a complex area. Some major hurdles have been removed by the Commission in indicating its willingness to accept changes, but there are still problems of ensuring consistency with national legal systems. One critical point is that the Commission is determined to make sure that there is a fair playing field. It is deploying more of its resources on that work and has taken a number of member states to the European court of Justice.
The principles of the compliance regime will be set by the Commission, but member states will be responsible for precise procedures. The procedures will be open and probably judicial; they will be closely monitored by the Commission. The advantage of leaving the detail to member states is that it enables account to be taken of particular national legal and administrative traditions and procedures.
The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland saluted the Government for their achievements in reducing the burden on local authorities. On emergency projects, in the case of an extreme and unforeseen emergency, the contracting authority can take immediate action without going through the normal procedures. He joined the hon. Member for Vauxhall in proceeding to what we regard as a somewhat slippery slope in terms of social conditions in the context of securing value for money. But I like the suggestion of finding a better system to make sure that opportunities are known throughout the Community. I hope that someone will take the entrepreneurial opportunity to achieve that objective, because it seems that such an opportunity would exist.

Mr. Dykes: Will my right hon. Friend respond positively to the idea of contracts being gradually and increasingly in ecus as well as in national currencies?

Mr. Brooke: The British Government in their separate actions have shown an enthusiasm for such ecu transactions and have regarded them as a much more sensible and practical way forward.
It was a delight to have the contribution of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, North. Those of us who are the cognoscenti and the aficionados of these remarkable debates tend to become a somewhat exclusive band of brethren. It is always extremely agreeable to be joined by someone new. I will look seriously at the standardisation of contracts, because of the economic advantage that will derive from them.
I ask my hon. Friend the Member for Southend, East to consider—

It being one and a half hours after the commencement of proceedings on the motion, MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER put the Question necessary to dispose of them, pursuant to the order [28 April].

Amendment negatived.

Main Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of European Community Documents Nos. 7496/88 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Treasury on 24th October 1988 and 5909/89 relating to public works contracts and 10497/88 and the Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum submitted by the Treasury on 2nd May 1989 relating to compliance with Community rules on procedures for the award of public supply and public works contracts; endorses the view that revisions to Directive 71/305/EEC are necessary to improve public purchasing throughout the Community; welcomes the Government's endeavour to secure a satisfactory outcome in discussions on the proposal on public works contracts in the Council of Ministers; and supports the Government's intention to press for a means of improving compliance with Community rules on procedures for the award of public supply and public works contracts which places appropriate responsibility on Member States.

STATUTORY INSTRUMENTS, &c.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith pursuant to Standing Order No. 101(5) (Standing Committees on Statutory Instruments, &amp;c.)

BEEF SPECIAL PREMIUM

That the Beef Special Premium (Protection of Payments) Order 1989 (S.I., 1989, No. 574), dated 23rd March 1989, a copy of which was laid before this House on 31st March, be approved.—[Mr. Alan Howarth.]

Question agreed to.

Inner-City Schools (Chess)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Alan Howarth.]

Mr. Michael Stern: I am most grateful for the opportunity to raise on the Adjournment the subject of chess in inner-city schools. About four years ago, in the first—and until this afternoon only—chess match played by a team from the House of Commons against non-Members since I was first elected in 1983, a team of hon. Members played a team selected from schools in the Inner London education authority. Half that team consisted of three brothers aged, from memory, eight, nine and 11, whose family had recently arrived from the Indian sub-continent. Between them they had only a few words of English, but they had been fortunate enough to go to a school which, although exhibiting all the other classic symptoms of inner-city deprivation, clearly had on its staff a chess maniac. The result was that those three boys had quickly learnt to use chess as a means of communication and self-expression. They gave us the surprise of our lives over the chessboard.
There is nothing new in all civilised societies in looking to education as a means of overcoming the poverty and the tendencies towards crime and drugs that are too often found in parts of our cities. When I say "our", I am referring to the cities of humanity, because it is a problem that exists thoughout the known world.
What is perhaps slightly more new is the growing belief that the game of chess can play a significant part in that educative process. It can do so not by attacking the visible difficulties that too often exist in such schools—such as the lack of pupil motivation, the high levels of truancy, the low expectations among pupils, the poor state of repair of many of the buildings and the lack of parental involvement —but rather it can assist teachers in their schools by providing and additional means of motivation, a demonstration of the ability of the mind to overcome obstacles and an encouragement to the use of thought to create order where none previously existed. Chess is not a panacea and it would be foolish to suggest that it could be. What I am suggesting is that it could be a useful tool. It could be one of many means to the end of improving the life chances of pupils in schools where life chances are all too few.
The emphasis on the game of chess, as a way of broadening the intellect, is not new. It was a slogan at the 1924 All-Union Congress of the Soviet Union that
chess is a powerful weapon of intellectual culture".
Perhaps closer to home, the last keen chess player known to have lived at No. 10 Downing street—although it should be noted that the immediate predecessor of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister was a keen amateur chess player—was Mr. Andrew Bonar Law, who, perhaps echoing the traditional view of the British public school, as satirised by Lindsey Anderson in the film "If", said:
Chess is a cold bath for the mind.
Whether or not it is either of those, it is certainly not a sport. The British Government are right to separate the game of chess from all other games by allocating responsibility for it to my hon. Friend from the Department of Education and Science, who will be replying to the debate, rather than to our colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment and

Minister with responsibility for sport. Sports such as football or basketball, or any of their many variants, have frequently acted as agencies for social change, lifting individuals out of a deprived environment and allowing them to act as an inspiration to others. Chess alone offers an intellectual route out, and is therefore much more attuned to the traditional values of education.
In raising this subject on the Adjournment, I am not asking my hon. Friend to plough more money into chess, as the Government already have an excellent record of pump priming in that respect and we as a nation have a proud record of sponsorship by individuals and companies in that area. Nor am I inviting my hon. Friend to put additional pressure on schools for the teaching of chess, simply to encourage more chess players. Our educational system clearly already works in that respect, since, as a nation, we rank an undisputed second to the Soviet Union in the chess world.
What I am suggesting to my hon. Friend is that there already exists across many of the developed nations a movement to begin to use the game of chess as an additional tool of the intellect in a deprived educational environment. I should like an assurance from the Minister that his Department will follow the work that is being carried out across the world with interest and commitment and will ensure that the results of that work, in educational terms, are applied as much in this country as elsewhere.
There is a great deal going on in this area and, in accordance with our tradition, we should be leaders. However, we can also afford to be followers.
Today marked an event n the history of the House when a combined team of hon. Members, Members of another place and Officers of the House—a total of 21 —received a thorough and entirely merited drubbing at chess by the reigning world champion, Mr. Gary Kasparov. I hope that today will, in fact, be remembered not just for that event, but for the public start of a process by which the most intellectual of games starts to he used more for the benefit of those in greatest educational need in this country.

Mr. Tam Dalyell: I thank the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern), who initiated this debate and his colleagues outside the House for their hard work in making it possible.
The House usually listens to those who have personal experience. I should like to report to the Minister that in my four years at Bo'ness academy on the Forth, I ran a lunchtime chess club—I also ran football teams—for any boy or girl who wished to play, and usually 20 to 30 volunteered. I was extremely struck by the fact that not only did they enjoy themselves, but that learning to play chess created confidence among the most unlikely pupils. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is an entry into many other things. It is partly for that reason that we should take it seriously and find out what encouragement can be given by the Department of Education and Science.
I do not complain that there is not a Scottish Minister on the Front Bench, but, as a Scottish Member of Parliament, I know that it will be understood that the same things have been said to the Scottish Education Department, which will bear in mind the long correspondence—in which my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths), who is present, was


also involved—with St. Andrew's house officials regarding help for the Scottish Chess Federation, which has done excellent work.
I emphasise that chess is of benefit not only to potentially clever pupils. I cannot refrain however, from saying that hardly anything challenges a clever pupil so much as—it possibly dates me—going through the games of Alekhline and Capablanca, more latterly the games of Botvinnik and Smyslov or the games of Fischer who appeared after my time at school.
The truth is that, from first hand experience, I believe that chess is valuable and should be encouraged. Encouragement is important because, at school, chess depends on teachers giving up their free time. Now is not the time to discuss the mood of the teachers and their difficulties with the Government. Suffice it to say that any encouragement that can be given to individual teachers to run chess clubs is valuable.
It is important where possible to have chess centres. that is why I greatly welcome the initiative that came to fruition this morning with the re-establishment in the City of London of a chess centre. That is a landmark and we are extremely grateful to the reigning world champion, Gary Kasparov, for taking the trouble to come to Britain to perform that opening. Talking of Gary Kasparov, it would be right to say a big "thank you" to him for coming to play Members of this House, Members of the other place, Clerks of the House and other staff associated with Parliament. It was an education in itself. I have never played anybody who moved P-R6 into my backyard with such effect and then pinned me for the rest of the match. It was a great lesson.
I know that other colleagues play chess repeatedly in the chess room. I do not play as I believe it would become an addiction and Members of Parliament have a few other things to do other than play chess. My chess is confined to playing my wife. I think of Julius Silverman, who educated us all. He was not only an excellent Member of Parliament but an extremely good chess player. My right hon. Friend the Member for Blaenau Gwent (Mr. Foot) is also a good chess player. I think of other hon. Members, some of whom have passed on, some of whom have retired, who get great pleasure from playing each other in the chess room under the portrait of Sir Watson Rutherford playing Mr. Bonar Law.
Insofar as an Adjournment debate can do it, let the message go out from the House that we are absolutely behind all those who brought Gary Kasparov here and who are responsible for popularising chess, particularly in the inner cities and in schools where it is most needed.

Mr. Nigel Griffiths: First, I thank the hon. Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) for securing the Adjournment debate and for focusing the attention of the House, and, I hope, that of the nation, on the value of chess.
In common with the hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) I rise bruised and battered having barely survived one round with the world chess champion. I have also profited from discussing with him the value of chess. I am pleased that today he was accompanied by the distinguished impresario

of chess, himself a great player, Raymond Keene, and also by Mr. Jonathan Speelman, one of the greatest players in the world and a great tribute to British chess.
It is vital that we do not get smug or complacent about the standing of British chess. That we have reached such pre-eminence is largely a tribute to amateurs and the voluntary efforts of so many people.
I disagree with the hon. Member for Bristol, North West about the funding of chess. Frankly, I believe that it is woefully inadequate. It is time that we started—the Government are the Government to do it and today is the day to give that pledge—to fund chess on a proper basis. If such funding is provided, chess will be elevated into a great game for men and women and boys and girls. Those young people will have an opportunity to develop important faculties as well as channelling their energies in such a desirable and productive manner.
The Knights of Caissa, an organisation set up to bring together the youth of Britain, the Soviet Union and America who could take chess into schools and thus drive out the more malevolent influences from them, deserves this House's support and commendation. It deserves to be endorsed by the Minister. I hope that he will be able to give a commitment to consider the excellent programme and prospectus that that organisation has produced and that he will be able to give that project long-term backing.
A fortnight ago, I had discussions with the Scottish Chess Federation, which is perturbed about the precarious level of funding in Scotland. I am sorry that the Minister responsible for Scottish education, the hon. Member for Stirling, (Mr. Forsyth), is unable to be present to hear the pungent criticisms that have been made of Scottish Office funding of chess.
I do not want this debate to be a time for recriminations. Today I believe that we all want to celebrate the fact that the world champion is in Britain promoting chess—he has so many fans here. We should mark that occasion by recognising the need to promote chess in the voluntary sector with hard cash. I hope that the Minister is generous enough to endorse that need.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. John Butcher): I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) on the timely nature of this debate. He has chosen a historic moment in the House's history and I cannot let it pass without entering into the record the results of the chess match between the world champion and hon. Members of the House. I have it on good authority that my hon. Friend lasted for 32 moves with Mr. Kasparov. I am also advised that my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Mr. Viggers), the hon. Members for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell), for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths), the hon. and learned Member for Fife, North-East (Mr. Campbell) and my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond and Barnes (Mr. Hanley) acquitted themselves well. I believe they are the Members who lasted the longest with their formidable opponent.
I hope that those hon. Members will be duly acknowledged in their constituencies for that particularly cerebral effort. We are not admired for many things, but I hope that, on occasions, we are admired for the type of brain power that was deployed this evening. I shall bring


to the attention of my colleagues in the Scottish Office the comments made by the hon. Members for Linlithgow and for Edinburgh, South.
I am glad to have this opportunity to respond to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West who appears here apparently none the worse for wear after taking on, with no more reinforcements than necessary, Grandmaster Kasparov earlier. I admire my hon. Friend's bravura and enthusiasm, if not his nerve, in even contemplating such a task.
We were indeed privileged to have Gary Kasparov here —evidence of the increasing warmth in our relations with his country as well as of the warmth of enthusiasm for that great game, for which he is such a notable ambassador.
As my hon. Friend said, chess is perhaps uniquely placed to cut across not only national and linguistic barriers, but those of sex, age, race, culture and background. The catalogue of social, cultural and intellectual benefits offered by chess is almost endless, and a number of them have been put forward this evening. I am surprised, therefore, and somewhat disappointed, to find that there are so few references to chess in great literature. But they seem to suggest that chess can throw some light on some of the deeper mysteries of human experience.
I do not expect my hon. Friend to agree with Henry James Byron's sharp statement, "Life's too short for chess." It all depends, I suppose, on how one plays the game—of life, or chess, as one likes. Thomas Huxley explored the chess metaphor richly when he said:
The chess-board is the world; the pieces are the phenomena of the universe; the rules of the game are what we call the rules of Nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us. We know that his play is always fair, just and patient. But also we know, to our cost, that he never overlooks a mistake, or makes the smallest allowance for ignorance.
Equally intriguing is a quotation from Robert Browning, appropriately from a poem called "Bishop Blougram's Apology":
And so we stumble at truth's very test!
All we have gained then by our unbelief
Is a life of doubt diversified by faith,
For one of faith diversified by doubt;
We called the chess-board white, we call it black.
'Well', you rejoin, "the end's no worse, at least';
We've reason for both colours on the board;
Why not confess then, where I drop the faith
And you the doubt, that I'm as right as you?
Intriguing though that thought is, my use of this quotation should not be taken to imply that I do not have as much faith in the value of chess as does my hon. Friend. But let us not forget that this faith will never be universally shared. Some misguided people will reject chess as elitist or over-competitive or, for all its apparent peace and quiet, as too militaristic in its overtones, or too much associated with foibles such as sulks and temper tantrums, or of no more intrinsic educational value than, say, that other popular board game, Scrabble. At bottom, it is all a question of choice, which we prize highly, and there is no danger that people in Britain, in their millions, will not continue to make their choice in favour of chess as a supremely rewarding pastime.
My Department has for many years made an annual grant to the admirable British Chess Federation, and I understand that the federation is seeking to promote chess at all levels and for all ages through the schools and hopes to introduce new award schemes in the near future as well

as producing a series of leaflets for school chess clubs, which will be in addition to its video on chess for children. So we have not been inactive in this matter.

Mr. Dalyell: How much was the grant last year?

Mr. Butcher: Speaking from memory, it was about £37,000.

Mr. Dalyell: I am not trying to catch the Minister out, but I put it to him that £37,000 is tiny compared with the potential good that could be done throughout the United Kingdom. Will he, after this debate, reflect whether a substantial increase could be made? It really would be value for money.

Mr. Butcher: I will deal with the question of funding and what has been called an endorsement of the game of chess, and I must be careful, as I shall explain, not to make it a sort of official Department of Education and Science programme. There are some aspects of chess in our schools, of which the hon. Member for Linlithgow will be aware, which would not be helped by an atmosphere of officialdom or of compulsion somehow creeping into it. The joy of chess is its voluntary nature and the fact that it becomes a pastime that develops into an exceedingly rewarding intellectual challenge.
Having explained that we have made a grant, the question is whether the Government should be doing more to encourage chess, particularly in inner-city schools, as implied by my hon. Friend. We must recognise that in schools chess is an extra-curricular activity, and many schools have active chess clubs. But some people might wonder whether it would be right for the Government to go any way towards promoting in schools specific initiatives in chess, thereby taking the risk of stifling the very essence of what makes pastimes most rewarding—its voluntary nature and the enthusiasm of individual motivation and commitment: indeed, the element of choice itself.
I know that my hon. Friend—and, I suspect, Labour Members—are far from suggesting a "state takeover" of chess. Anything that smacked of that would be anathema to us. Chess is fun, and intellectual fun. It is taken up by children voluntarily. Their interest may have been stimulated by a friend, a relative or a teacher. Chess is thriving, and those who are deeply committed to it and play it well—and those who may play it but infrequently and badly—regard it as a personal matter of choice and do not need official encouragement from the Department. The last thing we want to do—for those who may not have taken it up yet but have not closed their minds to it—is go any way towards suggesting that they should take it up because the Department thinks it would be good for them.
I hope that hon. Members do not think I am being negative. I am being positive by paying tribute to the vitality of the game, which has thrived and survived for centuries, and to the commitment of individuals who can inspire others with enthusiasm for the game and hence keep it alive in a way that no official edicts would hope to do.
The hon. Member for Linlithgow hinted at that very process in his involvement in chess at the academy of which he spoke. Surely, that atmosphere, the spark and enthusiasm that came from that process, did not come


from an official programme designed to encourage him or to get youngsters to be interested in chess. They enjoyed the joy of discovery and they did so with great enthusiasm.

Mr. Dalyell: Is the Minister aware that in chess tournaments, inter-school matches and particularly inter-area matches, somebody must pay for the minibuses, the heating and lighting and all the other logistics that are involved? Can the Minister give a breakdown of the grant of £37,000?

Mr. Butcher: I explained the sort of activities that are supported. I cannot at this hour give the hon. Gentleman an account of how much went towards which kind of activity. I thought it would be helpful to indicate the range of activities that were supported. I will write to him with the detail he has requested.
My hon. Friend rightly refrained from putting forward chess as a panacea for the social and educational problems perceived to exist in the inner cities. I will mention some of the measures that my Department is taking to improve the standards of education and the quality of life for young people in the inner cities.
I need not dwell at length at the question of city technology colleges, but they are targeted precisely on inner-city school children to improve their life chances. Anyone who has any doubts about the ethos of CTCs should talk to the people where they are currently in operation. Indeed, the principal of the Nottingham city technology college is clear on the identification of the cohort of young people in inner cities who should receive the benefits of this form of education.
My hon. Friend will be aware that business has pledged over £34 million in sponsorship, an unprecedented response to an education initiative. We have also increased the educational building allocations for inner city areas. We are funding a project providing intensive management training for teachers in 45 inner-city schools. An education support grant programme has been running for a number of years with a view to improving urban primary schools. Many such programmes are taking place and the Government are aware that they must secure the best possible return, not merely in terms of cash but in terms of changing the life chances of young people and school-children in inner cities. That is what this is all about.
My hon. Friend vividly and entertainingly used the chess metaphor and the example of the disciplines of chess and what they bring to young people, by illustrating their benefit to young people in inner cities. Some people who are unfamiliar with the game may have regarded chess with some apprehension, because 32 pieces moving around 64 squares in a manner designed to confuse and confound all but a few may have mystified them. However, I am hoping that that mystification will be eroded and reduced in our society. Attitudes are changing. Chess is now seen by many, and rightly so, as a means of promoting logical, disciplined and independent thought among children.
This change in attitude has been reflected in the advances in the state of British chess. Twenty years ago the United Kingdom did not have a single grandmaster. We now have more than 10, and the figure is rising every year. In 1984, the English men's squad came second to the Soviet Union at the chess olympiad in Greece and went on

to confirm its No. 2 ranking by again winning silver medals at the 1986 olympiad in Dubai and the 1988 olympiad in Thessalonika. There have also been numerous significant individual performances and several world titles in youth events. So we have come a long way in a relatively short space of time and the time is surely not far away when we will be challenging for the number one spot in the world.
I appreciate that there is also a Scottish dimension to this debate. I hope that Opposition Members will not mind if I remind my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West, although I am sure that he needs no reminding, of the immense progress that has been made in British chess over the past 20 years.
I know that there are many people whom we must thank for their sponsorship and encouragement that has enabled this dramatic improvement to take place, and I am pleased that my own Department has played its own part by providing support for the British Chess Federation through its annual grant to assist with administrative costs and the expense of sending British players to international tournaments. I am glad that my hon. Friend has emphasised the scope for further developments in chess, particularly with young people.

Mr. Dalyell: I should like to ask the Minister about the question of sending players on journeys to international tournaments. Will the Minister pass on the concern felt about that to the Scottish Office in the hope that it will reply by letter as to whether anything constructive can be done to help our promising chess players to travel?

Mr. Butcher: I am coming to that point in my penultimate observations. I said at the beginning of my comments tonight that I would draw to the attention of my Scottish colleagues the record of this debate. I shall do so and shall, of course, include the comment that the hon. Member for Linlithgow has just made.
I shall return to the reasons why we all endorse the lessons, disciplines and messages that come from chess. Chess players use their memory and their reasoning powers. They are strategists. It is of benefit to young people to develop and use those skills in the competition of an ancient game. I am happy to assure my hon. Friend that we shall look with great interest at the work to which he refers which is being done across the world to see what lessons can be learned and how they might best be promoted in the United Kingdom.
My hon. Friend said that there was nothing wrong with occasionally being a follower. We should like to learn from other countries' experiences, and I give an undertaking that my Department will keep an eye on matters to see whether any of the lessons learned abroad can be applied to the United Kingdom.
We also need to learn from the early experience of the chess centre in London, which could be a useful teacher for those who see education as a means of, at least, encouraging chess, in the various ways that we have tried to describe this evening. I mentioned the caveat earlier that, if chess became a state or DES-inducted exercise, it would lose something precious.

Mr. Dalyell: Can we receive an undertaking from the Department that it will monitor and take a sustained interest in the London centre initiative? It is terribly important to look at the benefits that may, and I believe will, come from having a centre where people can go, at almost any time of the day or evening, in order to play


chess. All I am asking for is a sustained interest in this experiment, and to see whether it could be transferred to other cities if it was considered valuable.

Mr. Butcher: I thought that was more or less what I had said. We have here on our doorstep a facility that will be part chess workshop, part competition venue. It will, if you like, be a laboratory of intensive chess playing. Therefore, I have no doubt that the lessons that we may learn from that about ensuring the popularity of chess will be duly noted.
I shall also mention the comments made about the Knights of Caissa initiative of which I have received notification. I have looked at the paperwork that has come though so far. My understanding is that the initiative is to be pursued for two or three years and then the DES and presumably other organisations will be invited to meet those involved in the initiative and judge the lessons of that exercise. If that is to be their policy and phasing, I am pleased to endorse that initiative, given that those involved are clear that they are conducting a testing, piloting and trial exercise from which lessons will be learned. Therefore, that initiative will be followed up.
Once again, I thank my hon. Friend not just for what he has done tonight for the whole House through his arrangement of this historic competition, but in initiating a debate on a subject that attracts the most vehement and affectionate support from hundreds of thousands of people in this country.

Drug and Alcohol Abuse (Schools)

Mr. Patrick Thompson: I am grateful for this opportunity of the Adjournment debate to speak on the subject of drugs and alcohol problems in our schools. I am also grateful to my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary for being present to reply. Normally when we debate, we nearly always talk about problems of engineering, skill shortages and so on. However, this topic, which I am sure my hon. Friend would agree is in many ways just as important, will produce a slightly different debate from the ones that we are used to.
As someone who was a schoolmaster for 23 years and who ran a chess team, I was also interested in the previous debate and I was tempted to intervene, but thought better of it. However, I support the general theme that ran through it. I listened to the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Stern) and to the hon. Members for Linlithgow (Mr. Dalyell) and for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths). The hon. Member for Edinburgh, South referred to chess replacing other malevolent influences in schools. I do not know what he had in mind, but it certainly made me feel that this debate follows on naturally from the previous one. If drug abuse is not one of the malevolent influences that can creep into our schools, I do not know what is. There seems to be a link between trying to create good extra-curricular activities in good schools and considering the problems that our children can come up against in and out of school.
I have not come to this debate armed with statistics. However, there is no doubt about the social and physical harm that can, and is, done to young people by drug addiction, particularly if we consider the link between drug addiction and the AIDS virus, and the problems that that can bring to young lives. Therefore, we have a duty to protect our young people from becoming involved in any serious addiction.
It is perhaps appropriate that tomorrow the Bill that I have presented, the Amusement Machines (Protection of Children) Bill should, I hope, receive its Second Reading. That Bill deals with protecting young people from addiction. There is a link between the problems that exist in the amusement arcades and drug addiction. Therefore, it is appropriate that I should have the opportunity to mention that tonight in the Adjournment debate.
In Norwich, as in so many parts of the country, there are continuing drug problems. While we are talking about young people, I want to pay a particular tribute to organisations in Norwich which deal with the rehabilitation of young people who have become involved in drug addiction.
The Matthew project runs a helpline, and I have spoken about its good work in previous Adjournment debates. There is also the Life of the World Trust, which has now been established for some 20 years and has operated from centres in various parts of Britain to help in the rehabilitation of young people with drug problems. Its aim is to prepare those young people for a return to a normal lifestyle, free from their dependency on drugs. Over the past 20 years, the Life of the World Trust has been successful with hundreds of young people who have become involved in drug addiction. Hebron house has recently been established in Norwich, and it is doing continuing good work with ex-drug dependants.
Although drug abuse has not been so much in the news recently, the problem has not gone away from our schools or from among adults. All the evidence is that the problem remains serious, not only in Norwich, but throughout Britain. The only up-to-date figures that I have been able to obtain this week refer to drug seizures for 1988. Customs and Excise officers seized a record £185 million worth of illegal drugs during 1988—an increase of almost 60 per cent. by street value on the previous year. I accept that taking seizure figures may not be the best way to try to determine a trend. After all, that can depend on the size of the haul and the circumstances in which the Customs officers were able to achieve it.
My hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, who is responsible for Customs matters, said recently that that 60 per cent. increase in the value of drugs seized during the past year reflects the increasing effectiveness of Customs and Excise efforts and—this is important—the growing scale of the threat. Therefore, although the problem has not been publicised a great deal recently, it would be wrong for any hon. Member to think that it has gone away. The trend is still adverse and that is why it is appropriate that we are having this debate tonight.
I am aware that the Government and the Department of Education and Science have been contemplating further initiatives to deal with drug and alcohol abuse in schools. Everyone has a role to play—families, schools, Churches and other leading figures and organisations in society.
At this stage, it is important to say bluntly that, just as illness is a sign of some sort of weakness within the individual involved—that is in no way to lay blame on that individual—so drug abuse is a sign of weakness, or even, to use stronger language, of decadence in some sections of society. After all, we can link the problems of drug and alcohol abuse with the problems of boredom, psychological disturbance, and so on. Therefore, wider issues are raised when we debate this topic.
It is not easy for any hon. Member to come up with a way to deal with these serious problems, but that does not mean that we have no responsibility—quite the reverse. We have a great responsibility, and the Department of Education and Science, with its responsibility for schools, also has a great responsibility. That is why I am looking forward to my hon. Friend's reply, bringing us up to date with the initiatives that the Department is preparing.
The effect of alcohol abuse among the young is also well known and serious. Longer-term health problems can arise as a result of alcohol abuse and behavioural problems are very much in the news at present. There are the lager lout phenomenon and the riot and crowd control problems. Without being too specific, many of the recent incidents in football stadiums and so forth are alcohol related. In addition, there is the problem of drink-driving and I want to pay tribute to the good work done by my right hon. and hon. Friends at the Department of Transport for their successful campaigns in tackling that problem.
I hope that my hon. Friend will be able to say more this evening about the initiatives that he has in mind, perhaps through the schools and the education system, for the prevention of alcohol, drug and solvent abuse. All those

forms of addiction are linked. They cannot be separated one from the other. In addition, as I said earlier, we must link all those with the problem of AIDS.
The Education Reform Act 1988 introduced the national curriculum, which says that it is our duty to promote the spiritual, moral, cultural, mental and physical developments of pupils at school and of society, and also to prepare pupils for opportunities, responsibilities and experiences in adult life. If that is the aim within our schools, it must be right to consider ways in which we can prevent drug abuse and help our young people to have a better spiritual, moral and cultural preparation for life.
I hope not just that my hon. Friend will recognise the ways in which the Department of Education and Science, through administrative initiatives, can deal with those problems—I am sure that we shall hear a lot about that when my hon. Friend replies—but that he will recognise and confirm that the tone and quality of schools is of great importance in dealing with such problems. That is not to say that, when dealing with individual human beings, there will not be difficulties in the best of schools, but my general point, is that the tone of the school, the leadership of the head teacher, the quality of the teachers and the general way in which the school is run, are relevant when we are considering the malevolent problems that come into schools and affect young people. The old-fashioned term "discipline" is relevant to the quality, tone and success of our schools, and the way in which young people leave them prepared for life in every possible way.
It is important to recognise that, in addition to any initiatives that we shall be debating tonight, the organisation of schools, which we shall not have time to debate tonight, and the morale of schools and teachers are relevant to this subject. An extra-curricular activity such as chess, which we debated earlier, can be linked with other sporting activities to show how important that aspect of school life is in preventing the type of problems to which I am drawing attention.
Let me take this opportunity to pay tribute to the good work done by so many teachers. In particular, I want to identify those in my constituency of Norwich, North and in Norwich and Norfolk generally. They are doing good work in social and health education, about which we are particularly thinking this evening, and they are doing a great deal generally to help to improve the quality of education in schools in Norwich and Norfolk at a time of rapid change. I welcome those changes and the speed with which the Government have addressed themselves to educational problems recently, and I pay tribute to the teachers in Norwich and Norfolk for the way in which they are responding to them.
A ministerial group has recently dealt with alcohol abuse and during the past few days I had a chance to see the circular that has resulted from that initiative. Again, through my hon. Friend the Minister, I want to pay tribute to Ministers for that work. The circular and the results flowing from it must be good news.
However, let me inject a cautionary note. When I finish reading a circular I find that I am not imbued with the kind of enthusiasm with which I would like to be imbued. Even after six years as a Member of Parliament I only have to read a Civil Service circular to find that all my enthusiasm and interest in a subject has somehow waned. That does not necessarily mean—in case my hon. Friend should misunderstand me—that the circular is wrong or that there is a better way of doing it. It means that the circular and


the administrative initiatives, excellent though I am sure they are, by the Department of Education and Science must be followed up with enthusiasm at local authority level, school level and so forth.
I congratulate the Department of Education and Science on the work it has been doing in this area and I look forward to hearing more about recent initiatives very shortly. We have the booklet on drug misuse and the young, which I know has had very wide circulation in my constituency and throughout the country. We have had the initiatives on teaching materials to help with problems of drug abuse and so on. More recently, we have had the largest education support grant ever, which includes sums of money particularly targeted on dealing with the misuse of drugs. I gather that in my own county, Norfolk, over £21,800 will be put to that particular use in the coming year. This must all be good news, because it will help local authorities to develop a strategy for dealing with drug abuse through the mechanisms which they have available.
All this is part of the Government's imaginative and vigorous approach to education and I congratulate my hon. Friend the Minister on his part in that. I look forward very much to his reply and in particular to what he has to say about up-to-date initiatives to help with the very serious problems of drug and alcohol abuse in our schools.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. John Butcher): First, I wish to thank my hon. Friend for bringing forward this topic tonight. As I hope to demonstrate, I shall respond very clearly to his invitation to indicate the major programme to be mounted in our schools.
First, I join him in the tribute that he has paid to the Matthew project and to the Life of the World Trust. I know that he takes a great interest in these matters and I am sure that, just as the people of Norwich are well served by him, so young people who may have a problem are served by those two bodies.
The scale of the problems of alcohol and drug misuse among young people has been highlighted by work done by Mr. John Balding at Exeter university. Surveys involving over 18,000 pupils in 1987 revealed that over 74 per cent. of fifth-year boys and 65 per cent. of fifth-year girls had consumed alcohol in the past week, with over 10 per cent. of the boys consuming the equivalent of more than 10 pints of beer. The same surveys revealed that up to 12 per cent. of fifth-year boys and 14 per cent. of girls had been offered cannabis or other more harmful drugs at some time during their teens. Those are chilling figures and reinforce our determination to help young people to avoid alcohol and drug abuse.
For the past six months I have been undertaking a review of all the policy issues which must come together in the formation of a plan to be applied in our schools to deal with the problems of alcohol and drug abuse. During that period I have chaired working meetings with drugs education co-ordinators and together we have assembled a great deal of information and know-how, and the co-ordinators have responded magnificently to my invitation to play their full part in the policy formation process.
I should explain that the DECs are in post in all English local education authorities, funded through education support grants and charged with the task of co-ordinating

education programmes for schools and colleges that disseminate the best practice in methods of reducing the risk of drug abuse by the young. I have also spoken to organisations such as TACADE, Kaleidoscope, the City roads rehabilitation centre and life education centres.
During those discussions and research activities it became very clear that through education we should increase the effort devoted to reduction of the demand for drugs; that we should create a generation of school children and young people who will turn their backs on dealers and pushers. It has also become clear that drug abuse, alcohol abuse and AIDS are related issues that can be tackled in a co-ordinated health education programme and that our future policy for school programmes should reflect this.
I said earlier that my hon. Friend's Adjournment debate was timely. It is so because I am now in a position to announce to the House the broad objectives and measures of our policy of demand reduction, which has benefited from the information-gathering stage I mentioned earlier. I can announce tonight a £7 million programme for the year 1990–91. Of this, £4 million will be used to support a new, broadened remit for drugs education co-ordinators, who will now be responsible for the provision of information and advice to schools on alcoholism and AIDS, in addition to their existing work on drugs. Funding for the co-ordinators—now to be called health education co-ordinators—has been guaranteed for at least three years in recognition of the fact that those programmes cannot be short-term programmes but will require a long and intensive effort by local education authorities and schools.
A further £3 million will be provided under the local education authority training grants scheme to fund in-service training of teachers covering the same key areas of health education.
I can also announce tonight a 10-point plan. I will deal with the salient points.
The first is the provision of information for parents, to be distributed via the schools, subject to the approval of school governors. The precise messages for parents will have to be agreed with local conditions in mind and will involve the co-operation of a variety of organisations, whose views will be sought.
The second point is to examine the effectiveness of existing health education and if necessary apply the lessons learned and modify the messages to young people.
The third is to integrate health education messages into the national curriculum in ways which are compatible with the foundation subjects and with existing programmes of personal and social education.
The fourth is the gathering together of examples of best international practice, with particular reference to the reasons for success or failure in other countries.
The fifth is the greater involvement of the private sector in the sponsorship of programmes on drugs and alcohol. An excellent example of this approach came from the Scotch Whisky Association, which supported a research project and an excellent conference on alcohol and young people.
The sixth is wider incorporation of health education issues in initial teacher training courses.
The seventh is development of further curriculum materials for teachers to build on the excellent work of TACADE, for example, with its drug-wise teaching pack.
The eighth is to secure better information on the health-related behaviour of young people. The ninth is to define in conjunction with the Department of Health specific and clear messages for different categories of young people—general messages for all young people at school, messages to those who are experimenting, messages to those who are indulging in regular or casual use, and messages to users with an addiction problem.
I am advised that concentrating on a particular substance or giving a high profile to a particular drug can be counter-productive. The best approach is for young people to be taught about the importance of a healthy lifestyle and a healthy body. They need to be given the skills to know how to resist pressures to misuse drugs and alcohol for health, lifestyle and social reasons. In a nutshell, our message to young people must be: "Stay healthy. Stay in control." Therefore, our tenth initiative is to give wider publicity to the stay healthy, stay in control message.
Those who follow this sad and unhappy issue will know that the drug pusher may not be obviously identifiable as a furtive, evil-looking character on a street corner. To those who may be susceptible, the pusher may currently be a friend. He may pose as a friend at a time when the potential victim has drunk too much and is offered a substance. We must ensure that people who find themselves in such situations recognise that moment and say no. If they do not say no, they may be on the first rung of the ladder to oblivion.
My hon. Friend is right to say that drink, drugs and AIDS are related. Someone who has drunk too much at a party may say yes to the substance that is offered to them. They may move on to harder drugs. They may eventually inject, share needles, and then face an increasing risk of contracting the virus that leads to AIDS.
I have said very little about alcohol, yet it is a wider problem than drugs. It affects young and old. Dr. Anthony Thorley estimates that 25 per cent. of acute hospital beds

for males are occupied by patients suffering from alcohol-related problems. A small but still too large proportion of young people seem to think that they can have a good time only through getting drunk. That phenomenon in itself raises a large number of questions. They merit a debate in their own right, and I shall not discuss them this evening. Nevertheless, we know that providing information on the effects of alcohol on health may not be enough. We must point out the bad effect of alcohol abuse on personal relationships, loss of respect from friends, and loss of appeal to the opposite sex. In other words, those messages are all relevant to the social preoccupations and self-esteem of teenagers and of young people.
I am particularly impressed by the campaign along those lines pursued through local radio commercials and advertisements in young people's magazines in New South Wales. The messages are strong and clear. Teenage boys, for example, are told:
If you don't want to look like a jerk, don't get drunk.
That is the clear message, in the clear, Australian style. The campaign's messages imply also that a boy is likely to lose a girl friend if he insults her or talks gibberish while under the influence of drink. It is those very personal, very apt and very relevant messages that must supplement the informative process in health education programmes.
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising tonight's topic. I hope that the House agrees that the programme I announced, which will cost £7 million, is a significant initiative. We shall monitor and manage that 10-point plan. I assure my hon. Friend that on such a serious issue, the initiative's management plan will be checked and assessed at regular intervals to see whether it hits its targets. It is on-going and will continue for three years. From that point on, if we find that we are winning, we may change the programme. I hope that that will be the case because, for the sake of our nation's children, we have to win.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes to Ten o'clock.